Seeing it laying on a table in my craft room the other day, I realized I’d been neglecting it…
…the old, Victorian photo album I found in an antique store last year—just begging to be filled—now coming back to life, page by page, with the women from my past…
One these two pages—my grandmothers. The pictures I chose for them here were their teenage selves. Young women just beginning to blossom into the women they would become…and they were gloriously beautiful women—inside and out.
The margins filled with bits of their lives—their characters—words to color and flesh out who they were…what they stood for…
Borders chosen by colors that represented them in my mind…
Yellow for LaPriel. Her favorite color, I was told when I was a child. The color of sunshine, happiness. Words that describe what she did for others—how she made them feel whenever she was around them…
A lovely deep purple for Velda. It reminds me that she loved violets. Each year, on her birthday, she told me that her grandmother would thoughtfully give her a little crystal basket filled with violets…I just planted dozens of newly budding violets in my garden—thoughts of my dear grandmother in my mind with each and every hole filled…
My little “Character” book is coming along quite nicely. I’m hoping my daughters and granddaughters will treasure it as much as I do, and learn just a little more about the women who came before them…
See you soon with something new.
Julie
