Small Magic - In the Details

My dear blog friend Andrea, at Falling Ladies, has begun a monthly collection of stories and experiences of what she has termed as "Small Magic". You can find this month's post by Andrea by clicking HERE

And the original "Finding Small Magic" Post on her Falling Ladies blog is HERE:

I hope you will take a moment and check them out, add your own (even just a link to a picture or a sentence or two is PLENTY! It need not be as wordy as I tend to be. :)

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Hi all!

I am just a day from leaving on my cross country train excursion to visit mom, and "home", though I sometimes struggle to call it such. I struggle because I have not lived there in over 20 years. Not in the state and not in the house I mostly grew up in.

And I can write this because I know that my mother understands what I am about to tell you.

Home is not just found in the place or the time spent. It is in the details.

The house remains the same, mostly. The rooms, the lot size etc. But all of the details. . . the small magic. . . is mostly gone. The small magic that I now know, made it "home" for all those formative years. Made it a place that, no matter what life in the outside world brought, I could retreat and get lost in the small magic that abounded there.

Small magic that was found in:

The bird feeder my grandmother stocked daily for her assorted feathered friends.
The hand-laid cobblestone road, now paved over with black, ugly asphalt.
The old recliners my grandparents sat in.
The little decorations and extra touches they had added all through the house over the years
The trees: Peach, apricot, plum, blue spruces lining the driveway. . . all gone.
The flowers I planted and tended to for my grandmother or, as my grandfather and I called her, "The Boss", year in and year out.
The stone birdbath which was a joy to watch all year long, even when it froze in winter and we'd poke a hole in it to allow the birds to find water!
The old toolbox in the "junk room", which was my great grandfather's, and had been hand-built.
The gravel lot (the neighbor's property actually) where epic stickball, nerf football and street hockey games were played and where a lot of skin got left behind over the years.
The old TV shows, the old tv (with rabbit ears when you had to actually GET UP to change a channel!!)
The flagstones out the back door that moles found their way beneath and dug their maze of tunnels each year.
The tree house
The ivy covered hillsides along the driveway.
Worn patches of grass in the uneven back yard from wiffle ball
The old red wooden sled in the garage
The old stereo
The simple feeling of timelessness and possibility and love that you can't define, but know it when you feel it.
All the smells of my grandparents cooking, old family recipes, 7 day candles burning, chocolate making and canning all summer and fall.

Maybe most of all, the possibilities of endless days of discovery. All those little trinkets and treausres tucked away over the years in the basement, in the sewing room, in the garage or that junk room, in the piles of boxes, that I would unearth in my childhood adventures and marvel at.

All of it gone. . .

Now, I do still find a lot of little things here and there. And I have, I know,  a keen imagination that allows me to suspend time even in the absence of such things and transport myself back there again and again. But, in truth, it is easier with physical distance. I actively seek the spirits of the past out when I am there. I open myself to that little boy and invite him in and, he DOES show up here and there. But it is often fleeting. My mother, you see, is very much a "here and now" type person, and understandably in her 80's, there is much to worry about I suppose. But I have never been a worrier to any great degree. Life drops what it will in our laps and reality is, as I have learned and proven time and again, very much a creation of choice, circumstance and attitude.And worrying never seemed to be successful at staving those incidents off or prepared one for them to any great degree.

Don't misunderstand. . . I adore seeing my mother and the fact that my coming there, cooking for her and connecting again makes her whole year is enough, truly, to say that it is worth going back. . . but it just is not the same for me. I'm just being honest.

So I will take those moments as I can find them over the next two weeks and try to fill them with whatever magic remains there. I'll try to find the small details, even if they are only in imagination and memory now. . .and I try to create new ones too or rediscover old ones that even I may have forgotten. . . and those are treasures, to be sure.

Since it is February, I am hoping for a real honest to goodness snowfall.
Maybe a few moments of that magical "time travel."
A little childhood inspiration. . . and most of all, just a touch of the innocence from that time.

Mostly though, I suppose I will be counting the hours til I can return to the reality we have created here. Where magic is the rule and not the exception 7 days a week. Where the outside world rarely encroaches or is allowed in. Where my heart soars with every new turn of the page, even the messy ones. . . and where that little boy finds small magic in every thing he creates, day in and day out. :)

See you all in a few weeks.

nicolas

PS, since I will not be able to post a new work post on the first, below is something I just completed for a custom request. A statue of Ereshkigal, a Sumerian deity that I had never made before. With all the details left to me, I pulled from several of her ancient incarnations including her association with having inspired Hecate (thus the owls) and her role in the underworld.

This work I do, I realize, is a perfect blend of adult/little boy. I "play" often and in turn, am fortunate enough to be able to navigate the adult world of expenses/bills from the work I do as well.

It's a far cry from legos and play dough eh? But the root inspiration, interest and exploration are very much the same as they were all those years ago.

Small Magic - Nostalgia

My dear blog friend Andrea, at Falling Ladies, has begun a monthly collection of stories and experiences of what she has termed as "Small Magic". You can find this month's post by Andrea by clicking HERE

And the original "Finding Small Magic" Post on her Falling Ladies blog is HERE:

I hope you will take a moment and check them out, add your own (even just a link to a picture or a sentence or two is PLENTY! It need not be as wordy as I tend to be. :)

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If you've been following my blog or visiting my shoppes on Etsy over the years, you probably are aware that i am a huge fan, and a fierce protector, of the notion of nostalgia. While my childhood was far from perfect and we all tend to gloss over some of the not-so-great aspects of  our lives, I think many people have a tendency to drift, for one reason or another, back to the past. Especially as we get older. 

For some it's childhood, for others it's college or the early years of their own children's lives. But it seems that, in one way or another, we all tend to find those spaces in the past where we can safely dwell for whatever personal reasons. 

Now, when that nostalgia revolves around childhood. . . well, many adults seem to leave it completely behind or, at the very least, rarely speak about it in and among their adult lives. You may see signs of it in someone's doll collection or Teddy bear Hug. Or in the way they interact with their own children during playtime or in creative endeavors. 

I never let go of that past and I am thankful, every day, that I didn't lose sight of it. 

To be completely honest, most of my life I lived with a foot in two worlds. That of the adult world around me and that of the world of my imagination and childhood. The struggle to maintain both led to a lot of frustration and misunderstandings among friends and family who could not see that I just was not cut out for the "adult" world. I needed every spare hour for my imagination and it was a very solitary pursuit for the most part. I made bad decisions. I tried to reconcile the two worlds in so many ways but, in the end, I always felt that the magical/childhood part of me was suffocating in the adult world. 

Then, after an accumulative series of events, I decided that it was time for a leap of faith. I was going to have to open myself up to the possibilities and ask for guidance as I threw myself and my world completely into the pot. All or nothing. Sink or swim. Betting on childhood, imagination and nostalgia over the adult world I had come to loathe.  Now, don't get me wrong, please, there are people who thrive in the adult world and I am  ever so grateful for them because someone has to keep our world running. . . it just couldn't be me anymore. 

I could tell you a dozen stories of what now seem like moments and instances when "angels" appeared, all within months, to be my guiding lights along the way. I also met Sofie who, without fail, has been the only person I have known in my adult life who didn't ask me to balance the two worlds or question my draw to the past, even though hers was a different experience. Despite that, she reveled in my memories , stories and dreams and explored them WITH me. With complete acceptance. We made the break together. And we changed our entire lives from top to bottom to suit the new life we wanted to have. We didn't expect that the world would accommodate our dreams without being willing to change along with it.

Around that same time as I was in the midst of creating what would become the building blocks of the reclusive, creative world we dwell in now, and of the work you see here that I create, the ghosts of Christmas past came to call. I stumbled upon something that I have held to as being a source of inspiration and light ever since.

During a random internet search laced with nostalgic ideas I found that, not far from where I grew up, there was man in his late 60's who had created a website for the history of little Christmas Putz Houses. Those glittery, magical, cardboard houses many of us remember form under our family trees in childhood. The history of them is fascinating but what I was taken by was that this man, and his love for these houses, was a clear channel to and from his childhood. That he REVERED that time and those memories and that he had found a way to keep it close and invest himself within his passion for it so late in life. 

It was a deeply appreciated thread for me to reach out and hold to.  

And the first thing I read from that web site was this:

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"There is but a very brief window in early childhood for many of us, a period of time that lasts from birth until we are cast from the nest and into school. A time when all about the world is new and good. A time when we are open. A time when we take things in so deeply that they will form us ever after. So we imprint upon the Christmas of that time, and what that was is what it will be for us always. 

I think that is what collecting is all about, especially for those who collect for LOVE and not for sterile speculation. 

This is true of most of the toys and trappings of the holidays. 

Artifacts. 

Actual tangible contact with our own past.

It is true that we forget nothing. The power that an object unseen in decades can have to transport us in mind and spirit back to a specific period or moment of our lives - to unlock long-closed doors in the mansion of our memory - is the true value that it has. We can hold such an object in our hands and know those times were real and welcome back whole parts of who we were into who we are - and let the inner child in each of us out once again to play - to live as part of us and and help us see again through our own "Magic Window"  

You will find that those old objects will take you back in time, but NEVER listen to those sad fools who say that you are "living in the past." We are what we are because of our pasts. Would that we could live in the past at will or at least visit from time to time. But we can bring  those things forward, to live within us as we face the uncertainty of the present and the future. 

Those pasts informed everything that we know so never be ashamed of your nostalgia . . .it was, and is, your reverence for the life you had, the path that you have traveled. -T.H. "Papa Ted" Althof

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Sadly, as a second wake-up call, I soon discovered that Ted Althof was dying, having been diagnosed with cancer just as I was diving in to his website in 2009. I'd never really put ityself in mortality's shoes before that. I always had time. Lots of time I thought. Angels, and small magic, really do come in many, many complex forms. 

What I am left to say is this: I wouldn't dream of asking anyone to be anything other than what and who they are. BUT if  this holiday/yule/solstice season you find yourself feeling silly for daydreaming of the best of your memories as a child, or your best memories WITH a child, please embrace it fully instead. We can't actually go back, I know, but allow yourself that time, that place and those memories to come back in a quiet hour. Indulge them fully. I can't say they'll lead you to a life path like mine but they WILL fill you with a bit of small magic and wonder again. And you might just find that today does not have to be so far from that wonderful memory of yesterday.

Have a wonderful and magical season wherever you are and find that SMALL MAGIC always and in all ways!

And  a special thank you to all of you for coming along on MY nostalgic road-trip, offering your kind words, support and patronage as I built this world I thrive in now. 

nicolas

PS:

If you are interested in Christmas Putz houses and their history, there is an archive of the original Papa Ted's Place website, maintained by fans and friends of Mr Althof after he passed in 2012. They kept it just as it was with only a note stating his passing as an addition. It's a relic of a site. Not slick and "squarespaced". . . but that only adds to it's charm and beauty I think. Great old photos, collections, stories, memories. 

The site is here: Papa Ted's

Small Magic - It's NEVER Too Late

My dear blog friend Andrea, at Falling Ladies, has begun a monthly collection of stories and experiences of what she has termed as "Small Magic". You can find this month's post by Andrea by clicking HERE

And the original "Finding Small Magic" Post on her Falling Ladies blog is HERE:

I hope you will take a moment and check them out, add your own (even just a link to a picture or a sentence or two is PLENTY! It need not be as wordy as I tend to be. :)

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So this month I have just been so busy that there has been little time to create the Small Magic post I really wanted to  which I will save for November. 

One of the major influences in my writing and future ideas for figures and such in my Bewilder and Pine shop is a gentleman named Monte Cook. A role playing gamer for 40 years and the owner of Monte Cook Games, he recently set a Kickstarter record for fundraising for his latest RPG creation, "Invisible Sun". He is taking gaming to new creative levels with this project and I'll talk more about that, and it's influence on my own work, in the coming months.

His weekly newsletter from his website links to some other articles and projects that he finds interesting and I was quite happy to come across this article about a 26 year old man who hosted a Dungeons and Dragons game for his 70 year old grandparents, a couple of their friends and his 50-ish year old mother and another couple who is in their 60's.

All were playing for the first time. . .and they LOVED IT! :)

You can read the article, called "70 Year-Olds Play D&D for the First Time and Love It" by clicking HERE

The "Small Magic" of this, to me, is that it shows that it is never too late to try something new and to engage the imagination in new ways. My favorite part of the article is how the grandfather now texts his grandson between weekly games to discuss his character and it's backstory. lol That's AWESOME!

I never was a gamer. Still am not. (but maybe by the time i am 70?) Still, I appreciate the people I've known who do play it . . . as well as the worlds that are built around it and the creativity it inspires down the line.

For another interesting take on the role of gaming in adult life, if you are a podcast lover, you might try the episode of "Imaginary Worlds" ( a podcast I HIGHLY recommend) called "Rolling the Twenty Sided Dice" found HERE:

There are some very interesting takes on the influence of gaming on kids from that 80's generation who are adults today. 

The Imaginary Worlds podcast covers a range of subjects that are all surprising peeks into the worlds we create and why. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy those and I'll be back as soon as time allows in this hectic holiday making schedule to share some more magic with you all. . .

No Dungeons around here, just Dragons. :)

Small Magic - The Eyes Have It

My dear blog friend Andrea, at Falling Ladies, has begun a monthly collection of stories and experiences of what she has termed as "Small Magic". You can find this month's post by Andrea by clicking HERE:

And the original "Finding Small Magic" Post on her Falling Ladies blog is HERE:

I hope you will take a moment and check them out, add your own (even just a link to a picture or a sentence or two is PLENTY! It need not be as wordy as I tend to be. :)

I have so many ideas for my own contributing posts about "Small Magic" as I feel my life has been, and always will be, filled with it. But for today I am going to tell/retell an old story about one person's kindness and heartfelt advice that, looking back almost 30 years, changed my life in more ways than I can count or ever be thankful to him for.

I applied for my first "real" job when I was 17.  As a busboy at the Italian Restaurant that my mother worked at as hostess, manager, waitress etc. In fact, the restaurant was brand new having been built by the city for the two brother's who owned it because their old, tavern-like Italian restaurant had been torn down to make way for a new steel and glass tower in the heart of the city.  So part of the deal was that they got a 200 seat "supper club", with a parking garage, for nothing but agreeing to give up their corner lot which now is in the middle of the massive downtown office complex.

So, two brothers, Michael and John. Two completely different personalities. In fantasy terms, John would be the Ogre and Michael the High Elf. lol

My mother had gotten me an interview for the position and, even though I look back and know that it was a done deal and I'd get the job, at the time she impressed upon me the need to make a good impression and to do well in the interview. I was terrified the interview would be with John. but, it turned out it was with Michael.

I adored Michael. Whenever I would come into the old, tavern style restaurant he would always take time to say hello, tousle my hair and invite me back into the kitchen and give me a taste of something wonderful. A taste of meatball marinara, a dish of Spumoni Ice Cream, a piece of veal parmesan. . . heaven!

I had no doubt I could do the job. I had been "working" since I was 13. Cutting grass, raking leaves, cleaning gutters, painting and gardening, a newspaper route (remember those?), and even a few shifts working at my great Aunt's Arco service station. So I was confident I could be a busboy.

It was also just a part time "summer job" before my senior year of high school so I felt I couldn't really go wrong. If it was a terrible job, I only had to stick it out three months and then weekends thru the Christmas office party season.

I went to the interview and, to this day, recall none of it. I was nervous, of course, but I do remember feeling fine about the answers I gave and the great sense of relief when it was over. Michael was very professional and shook my hand when I sat down and again when I left.

When my mother got home that night she said she needed to talk to me. I thought I wasn't going to get the job. I was looking forward to the money and the experience so I felt a little disappointed that I might have lost the opportunity.

But I DID get the job. However what she wanted to tell me was that Michael had told her "He's such a good kid and of course he has the job, but you have to tell him he has to look people in the eye when he talks to them."

Apparently I did not look him in the eyes even once after sitting down for the interview. That's probably also why I do not remember a second of it.

Of course, now I look back and I see it all very clearly.

I was far from a shut-in or wall flower. All of my school report cards, grades 4 thru 10 had said some variation of "Great student -  talks too much!" But outside of school every possible moment was spent in my imaginary worlds. It's what got me thru the toughest times in school. Knowing at the end of the day I got to go home and disappear into that endless world of my creation.

But around adults, in the "real" world, yes, I was definitely not comfortable with that. I wanted little or no part of that world and I avoided it like the plague.

But Michael's words that day, spoken out of love and concern for the well being of someone he saw as a bright young man with potential, were something I definitely needed to hear. Something that only  a person looking in from the outside might see clearly. And something only someone with a heart of gold might take the time to mention to my mother for no reason other than he cared.

It shocked my mother as she never noticed that aspect of my personality but, that makes sense too as our family world was small as well. Familiar faces and relations all the time really. Very few strangers or outside influences. And those, so brief and unimportant, that my situational shyness ever attracted any attention.

I took the advice to heart and find that, in looking back, it was invaluable to my future self. Owning coffeehouses, friendship, relationships, managing and running restaurant kitchens. How would I have ever been able to do any of it without that ability to look people in the eye?

And I learned, as many people do, that there is a certain magic and power in that ability to look another human being, especially a stranger, directly in the eye.

And I notice these days that I still tend to drift to this habit. Especially when in the midst of, or just exiting, my creative paracosm and imaginary worlds. It takes me a bit of time to reconnect with the rest of the world and I find myself averting eyes and connections for a bit. Like a swimmer coming up from the depths of the underwater world and taking in all the sound and sight of the land-side world. It takes a moment. Or two. Or more.

Small magic. A big heart. I had the pleasure of working with Michael in that restaurant for two years before he sold his half of the business back to his brother and got out. His leaving opened up the space that I filled working part time in the kitchen and then, as fate would have it, I ended up running the kitchen of the restaurant within a year after that.

I never forgot Michael's words through it all or after all these years and I cannot explain the myriad of ways that advice helped me in life.

And because I think life is cyclical and not linear and that we will be given opportunity after opportunity in life to revisit all our old habits, shortfalls etc etc, I am gifted with that chance every so often. I catch myself looking away or down. I find myself as that 17 year old again disappearing from the "real" world. Then I remember his words. . . his concern. . . and I reconnect with the world around me all over again.

Small magic.

For the work of a lifetime.

And here is a little visual "Small Magic for you too! :

A new gargoyle friend. . . Zunge already found his place of service in a home that has an entire quarry of my gargoyles!

The Unwinding of Days and Small Magic

So the last two weeks. . . ummm so much for blogging more often.

Just busy. . . some good busy some bad

Family visits
Lost almost two weeks worth of writing (learn to use AUTO SAVE!)
Pinched neck muscle = no sleep
Extra busy Etsy shops
Summer's final deadlines arrive out of nowhere! lol

We are constantly amazed at how the days fly by and for those of you who also have families at home, social scenes, outside commitments . . . how do you do it? : )

But what I want to share is my experience last week of something coined as "small magic" by one of my favorite bloggers. You can read more about the idea here: How to find Small Magic

And you can see her first monthly Small Magic post here: Small Magic at Falling Ladies

Unfortunately, due to another glitch in my last two weeks, I have only words and just a few borrowed photos (thanks drained camera battery!) of my own experience to share but will share more about this in the future.

In the midst of the craziness of the past few weeks I knew, though it is rare for me, that I needed a day off to unfrazzle and decompress.

So to "earn it", I chose to do some errands early Friday morning and then, to reward myself with a trip to our county's main library followed by an indulgence in one of my favorite activities . . . one that I do not do often enough.

About five miles from our home is a lovely out of the way place called Kilchis Nature Reserve it's a roughly 2 1/2 mile trail loop through some of the most beautiful, dense woodlands and, if you take the full trail, it leads out to the shore of the back end of Tillamook Bay where you can bird watch (herons, Egrets, Eagles, Ravens, And a multitude of water animals all year long.

Now, I'll post about the trails another time because it is quite the place. When I first moved to this part of the coast 4 years ago, the trails were simply wetland paths thru the forest for the most part. Impassible in areas except in the peak of summer. But the love and inspiration of one couple, the  Albrights, Gary and Carla, turned Kilchis into a magical destination for everyone and not just the intrepid explorers. A small brick loop allows every one to access the woods to a point.

Now,  finely groomed but natural looking trails wind through the forest and across wooden bridges built over the seasonal streams and wetland areas. Massive volunteer hours to move the tons of materials into the forest to make these trails alone is mind-boggling.

Not far from the entrance, this is a favorite bridge to cross. It feels like a "boundary". You step off the brick path on the far end and cross into the dense forest and natural trails. It can feel cooler just as you reach this end. Early Spring here finds huge, prehistoric looking Skunk Cabbage in abundance under the bridge!

But, for me, the small magic of this place is that every so often there are natural, mossy tree stump "benches" that await. I rarely see anyone sit on them as there are also more modern, wooden benches along the paths too and it is easy to miss the log benches as they blend seamlessly into the surrounding landscape.

But the small magic of Kilchis reserve for me is this.

On any given weekday, and even weekends in the off season, it is possible to take a favorite book, (preferably one about faeries, magic or other worlds) walk a half mile into the trail and find a mossy log bench. Then, I'll sit on the mossy bench and read my book and I can hear almost nothing but the sounds of the forest. The wind whispering through the trees. The trickle of leaves tumbling to the ground. The scurry of wrens and robins in the underbrush. There are banana slugs, Rough Skinned Newts and an occasional squawking Stellar Jay. You may even see a Barred Owl and Bald Eagles close up when you sit still enough to become part of the scene.

Not far from my mossy log bench, this little bridge turns you out towards the bay trail. 

But that hour or two, reading a magical book in this enchanted setting. . .

That is a dose of small magic for my soul. :)

And this is the back end of Tillamook Bay at the very end of the trail.

So please visit Falling Ladies at those links above and, as Andrea gets the monthly Small Magic theme going, join in, won't you?

And lastly I could not resist sharing one new creation. My "Little People" figurines are taking off quite nicely and I am working on a variety of looks for them to encompass all the tiny folk of the "otherworld". I am just about to list this little guy.  The first Little People "Troll", named Volker!

I've been making larger figurines for a few years but, let's face it, mini is my thing! lol

He's just 2.5" inches (6+ cm) tall!

Thank you for dropping by and I will get caught up on all my favorite bloggers soon I promise!

Have an enchanted weekend!

xo

nicolas