My mother's sanctuary

Without needing a word for it, my mother made her love manifest in everything around her. I found my first sanctuary in her arms, and in every corner of my childhood home.My first teacher in the art of creating sanctuary was, yes you guessed it, my mother.From the very first house I can remember, she made sacred space for our family of five. And to this very day, she is still making sanctuaries -- but now there are more families, more grandkids, more addresses. She’s amazing that way. And she travels -- a mobile sanctuary creationista -- helping each one of us create it in our own homes and in our own lives.My mom had many sanctuaries for herself in the house where I grew up. She still has them. There is her sewing nook, ruthlessly organized with patterns, spools of thread, scissors and cushions of color-coordinated pins. She would sit and sew for hours, out of sheer necessity when I was younger, and then just for the creative pleasure of it as her life became more prosperous and she didn’t have to sew new clothes for us to wear.There is her kitchen where she nurtured us with the food she prepared with skillful hands. I always believed I could taste the love in her cooking.In one corner of the kitchen is her official command central, her desk. This is where she runs the house and keeps the dates, paperwork and bills under control. Her favorite pens are there and a pretty cup of colored pencils. She tacks pictures of her grandkids and inspirational quotes on her bulletin board.There is her bathroom with her beloved bathtub. My mom took a bath almost every night when I was young. I used to go in and cuddle up to the rim of the tub, just wanting to be near her, to talk to her. She would lay her head back, close her eyes and we would both inhale the divine scent of green Vitabath. I still use that very thing in my own bath when I’m not mixing aromatherapy oils and herbs. It smells like sanctuary to me. I feel the tension leaving my shoulders the minute I inhale it.She made a sanctuary in her garden where she grows herbs, vegetables and flowers. Her tender ministrations produce beautiful harvests, stunning blooms and delicious seasonings. She is never happier than when she is puttering, pruning and caring for her garden. Her thumb isn’t just basic green. It’s crazy, electric, sparkling emerald green. I’ve always suspected that her plants know she loves them and bloom just to see her smile.There is her corner of the sofa in the family room with the big basket of catalogs next to the arm. She is the only person I know who still, to this day, alphabetizes her catalogs and each week adds the new copies that arrived in the mail, throwing away the old ones as they are replaced. Now when I go home to visit, she is fussing over her chicks returned to the nest most of the time, but I know she still does those very things when we’re not there, especially on chilly winter nights.My mom didn’t use the word sanctuary as she created that very thing in our home. She just did it. It made sense to her. It was natural and flowed straight from her love of beauty, our family and the domestic arts. Martha Stewart may have written a beautiful book about those domestic arts but my mom really lived it, still truly loves it.When I was about 12 years old, she brought home a bolt of brightly colored fabric that was left over from one of her interior design projects at work. She told me we could use it to start the redesign for my bedroom. I was thrilled! Printed on white canvas, it had brightly colored blooms and leaves -- primary reds, blues and yellows with the resulting combination colors of orange, green and purple. It was an optimistically happy fabric and I had so much fun putting the room together with her. I realize now she was showing me how to create my very own sanctuary space. We did it together. And with that cheerful garden blooming right in my room as it spread across my bedspread and matching curtains, I was filled with a sense of belonging and stability, of peace and yet bubbling delight. Ah the power of bringing the outside inside our spaces.It’s no surprise then, that over the years that passed once I moved out of the house and went to college, some of my favorite memories are times that I went back home. Back to the first sanctuary I ever knew. Holidays, summers, semester breaks -- I jumped at the opportunity to go home. Even after my first job started and I moved to a different state, the trips back to be in that nurturing environment were still a highlight for me. I did create sanctuary for myself, both at college and in my first apartment but there was never anything quite like being back in the first one I knew -- my childhood home.Over the past year my mom has talked about moving. Downsizing. It’s been many years since she’s filled all of those now empty bedrooms. It’s a lot of upkeep, especially when she spends more of the cold months in warmer climates. I have been filled with very mixed feelings about her moving. On one hand, I know it is the right direction for her life, but on the other, I realize that I will have a period of mourning for that house, my first sanctuary.But the one thing that my mom taught me most of all, is that true sanctuary, the unshakeable, un-lose-able kind, is actually inside of me. It’s not in the rooms, or the fabrics or the collections of mementos -- it’s inside and will be with me no matter where I might be in the world. So on this Mother’s Day, I am celebrating my clever, talented, hilarious mom. Thanks Mom, for those lessons. They have been the foundation of everything for me. I am carrying this work, our work, forward in the world the very best that I can.With gratitude and oh so much love,Lisa