Thursday, October 22, 2009

My Creative Space: Autumnal Inspirations

Autumn is an exciting time in our household: two of our children have birthdays, the concert season starts up again and cooler temperatures inspire many of the indoor pursuits that make a house a home. While I am not presently playing any concerts, I have benefited as if I had. The beautiful bouquet of flowers pictured here was presented to my husband at a concert he played on Monday night and I get to enjoy them!

Today is my eldest child's nineteenth birthday and it somehow seems a bigger deal than many of his other birthdays. I am walking around somewhat in shock that I am old enough to have a nineteen year old child. It really seems like only yesterday we were driving to the hospital with Mozart's Duo Concertante playing on the car stereo. I remember waking up from a nap and having my water break, then leisurely taking a shower and then eating some toast and tea. Number One was born a few short hours later and our whole world changed. Every body's life changes when they have a baby but ours changed differently than most as we soon discovered that our new son had Down Syndrome. This is not a post about disability but inspiration. I like to think that my son's special needs have inspired me to be creative even if creative means figuring out how to laugh at a situation rather than cry. I have certainly needed to find time for myself so I could make things and I feel fortunate that my temperament was accustomed to doing so. Because there are many things that Number One cannot do, I have learned to see more of what is there (in the world) than what is not and relish the little things like fall flowers and chocolate cake. The birthday cake I made today is our standard recipe using the Moosewood Vegan Chocolate Cake recipe. The whole family enjoyed about half of it after singing Happy Birthday and really the day did not seem so shocking after all.

Here is another Autumnal tablecloth that is inspiring me to keep the cake keeper in use. See what others are inspired to create at Kristy's blog

2 comments:

Kylie said...

What lovely sentiments and a delicious looking birthday cake. It's funny to see another family with a favourite/standard chocolate cake used for birthdays. My Mum has a great chocolate cake recipe that is whipped up quite regularly for birthdays and we all love it too! Thank you for stopping by!

gardener-b said...

It's a wonderful attribute to be able to see beauty amidst the vissitudes of life. Keep being inspired to create.