I love home.
I love creating a vision for a refuge, an art studio, a dinner party.
I love creating spaces for repose, for artistic expression, for serenading.
I love creating spaces that are aromatic, energetic, restful, or inspiring. I love nurturing.
If we take the case that life is something to create, something to author, a dance to choreograph...then it isn't happening to us. I love creating the life I love.
I love creating safe spaces for people, for animals, for the lost or lonely or needy.
I love setting a table for the hungry- whether it is a physical hunger or a spiritual one, or an intellectual or emotional hunger. There is something nourishing about a soft rug, a folded linen napkin, a lit candle, a familiar prayer.
As much as my life is bound up in the home, I feel that every day is an adventure. Everyday has the capacity, the potential to be a thing created, a thing carefully crafted with heart, soul, purpose, and with authentic self. Everyday, I am in the presence of fellow creators, of inventors and dancers and explorers and artists. Everyday, I am in the presence of the soulful, the hardworking, the curious, the hungry. Everyday, I set a table for hungry minds.
But I reside in the consciousness that I, too, live hungry. I, too, must set a table for myself. I must feed my curious mind. I must nourish my body and my soul. I must forage my space for beauty, forage my library for new ideas, forage my yard for fresh dandelions, forage my Bible for new strength.
Setting the table for myself is an old art, but always a challenge. Yet, I am conscious that I am always partaking of the things I serve others. It is always reciprocal. We are always symbiotic. When one suffers, we all suffer. We thrive on communion, unity, and the incessant exchange of energy, ideas, and rhythms.
I am not an island. But I cultivate my cozy nook, arrange my table, let in the light, and bask in the rain-freshened air of an open window. I dance across the newly cleaned floors. I lie around with books, compiled notes, and all the paraphernalia of the perpetual student.
What table are you setting today? For yourself, for others? For body, soul, and mind?
Sincerely,
Natasha
