Life Is A Bowl Of Cherries

I’ve been meaning to write a blog post for the past week, but the one I had in mind was filled with anger. Perhaps that’s why the right words just never came to me. Well, not words I could use in a family friendly blog post anyway, and once you hit a certain age, you realize it’s not good to hang onto the anger. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, I hit that age long ago.

It’s outright frigid here in Western New York, which is expected in January when you live in the tundra of the Empire State, and with no heat over at the house, work is on hold over there. A side effect of hitting that age where you learn to let go of anger is that even with 3 layers of clothes on and Muck boots with thermal and fleece lined slipper socks, things still start getting numb fast. Not to mention that trying to do anything with alpaca mittens on pretty much leaves you looking like a less agile version of a lobster. Bernie Sanders may have made mittens famous last year, but all he had to do was sit there.

I have however started making daily trips over to the house since we had a Social Media creator decide that it would be a good idea to break in. See above about wanting to write a post filled with anger. I’ll save that story for another day if I decide to write it. Maybe when it is all resolved. Investigations and lawsuits are not exactly fun. For today, I am focusing on things that make me happy.

I have been so busy just looking at all of the structural things that, although the house is filled with “stuff” I haven’t really seen any of it. That’s all I see is “stuff” and not actual “things”. Now that I am spending a bit more time walking through the house everyday, saying hello to the spirits who reside there, and listening to what the house has to tell me, I’m starting to notice the things. The little bits and bobs that were all a part of the previous owners lives at one time, sitting and waiting there patiently to see where they will go from here.

Today I ventured farther into the room they used as a kitchen than I have before. As I looked over the sink, I saw a frying pan with cherries painted on it that read “Life Is A Bowl Of Cherries” and it instantly looked familiar to me. For years, in my own kitchen I had an old bowl that I had painted cherries all over with the same phrase on it. As I got closer, I suddenly remembered painting something similar to the pan hanging on the wall. Closer… and there was the name signed on it. “Trisha” in my very distinctive handwriting. It was a piece I had made at least 15-20 years ago! Hanging in the house I just bought! I was absolutely floored!

While I have only known the previous owners for 2 years now, we have become very close. I consider them more like family than friends, and the wife has become like a mother to me. I immediately texted a photo of the piece to her and let her know I had painted that and it was one of my favorite pieces! You see, I can paint lettering and signs all day long, but actual pictures, well, I’ve never thought I was very good at that. I am the only person I know who can make every single watercolor painting I try to create look like mud. So I have tended to stick more with crochet, because I’m good at that! And I limit my painting to signs, so there aren’t many of these types of pieces of mine out there.

They say an artist leaves a bit of their soul in every piece they create. I can say that with crocheting, I’m sure that I leave pieces of my hair in everything I create too. Suddenly here was this piece of my past, and a bit of my soul staring back at me.

The previous owner messaged me back, “Oh my gosh! That’s so funny. I have always loved it too. Well that just tickles me to no end. Who would have thought you had been with me and the house all these years”

For the past 15 years, this house has called out to me every time I drove by it. I don’t know how to explain it, but I always knew she would be a piece of my life. The story of it being a stop on the Underground Railroad drew me in, and tales of tunnels that lead from the basement to the river and ghosts sounded so mysterious and right up my alley. But you see, in trying to sensationalize things, people often tend to romanticize these types of houses, and as the years go on, just like kids playing a game of telephone, the story changes and grows as the years pass. Our goal is to separate truth from myth.

The romanticized version of this story is that the house picked up on that little piece of my soul I left with this art, and it knew I belonged there, and it has called to me all these years until I finally answered. No matter what version you believe, I know I am exactly where I belong and I am about to leave a lot more of my soul in the Old Renwick House.