PLANT PAINTINGS!
These are 2 small paintings I recently did as gifts for our interns at the Yellow House to commemorate their first year together and the commitment they've made to stay and continue growing together :)
One of the values we learned and internalized this year around the Yellow House is the importance of stability...of committing both to people and a place and staying put for the long haul. None of us came to value this easily, naturally, or before throwing a few "adult temper tantrums" (I'm kidding...kind of) as it is so counter-cultural these days, especially for us young adults. Whether you call it "on-the-road syndrome" (thanks, Jack Kerouac*), "the-grass-is-always-greener disorder," wanderlust, or just 20-something ambition...it's hard to deny that those of my generation typically more often have our eyes on the next exciting thing than the tangible here and now...the next text message, the next place, next job, next 3-month internship, next trip to the mountains, next relationship, and so on. When we can't even commit to a dinner offer because something better might come up (true story), we're missing the people we're "with" and they're missing us. When we can't stay in a lease agreement longer than 2.5 months (another true story), we're missing all that the neighborhood/city/state has to offer and surely not seeing the myriad of things we could offer to it.
A seminal book on all this planting business. It has surely challenged and formed us significantly. Check it out if you're curious!
I'm convinced this whole life thing is one big search for home. Home doesn't just happen. Home isn't going to randomly be found up one mountain or another, in that city with the cleanest water and organic produce on every corner, or in your dream apartment. Home is something we make...by showing up and being present where we are with the people around us. Home is both place and people. We can make home where we are. By committing and being committed to, and by result making a safe place to share life and all of ourselves with those around us.
This is the design that the above paintings were based on. Click the image to check out the Yellow House's online store for more prints and other products like this!
Ok, that's a super short snippet of what we've been learning and trying to live out together here in Shreveport, here in Highland. Not everyone will be called to make home in Shreveport obviously, but I would venture to say that we are each made to do so somewhere with some community. Where is that for you? It won't be the "perfect" place because that just doesn't exist. It won't be with the perfect, conflict-free community because that's even less likely to exist. Could it be where you are now? If not, I hope for you, that place, and your future friends that you find it soon:) But could it be where you are? For us, that's Shreveport and Highland as I've said, and we've decided to plant here and trust that we'll grow...as individuals, as a family, with our (literal) neighbors and that as a result the block, neighborhood, city, and beyond will grow and change by extension. And we trust that there will plenty enough adventure along the way, as there surely have been already!
Here's to finding the freedom in planting and flourishing in that life together...
sd.
*To clarify, no hard feelings toward Kerouac! In fact I'm fascinated by him, his work, and it's influence on culture. It's just a reality that part of that influence was contributing to this myth that freedom is found on the move.