Are You are Renaissance Woman?

Flowers everywhere, herbs, trees, a wooden swing, paths, walkways, decks, a hammock and lighting all START to describe my mother's yard and home.  What makes a person love to garden, love to surround themselves with plants and take the time to have flower arrangements everywhere in the house, including the bathrooms?

This could be considered, to some, a Renaissance Woman.  We have heard of the renaissance man; well-rounded, educated, appreciates beauty, well-read, but why aren't we aware of the Renaissance woman?  My mother would be one; educated, a lover of beauty, an athlete, well-read, out-going, a cook, a decorator, knows money, stocks, business, politics...Renaissance.

When going to my mom's for Christmas brunch you will find a table set for at least 10.  At each setting there is a water goblet, a large plate topped with a glass plate with shrimp and cocktail sauce, the proper silverware and a champagne glass for mimosas.  The proper silverware, cloth napkins, Artesian breads, Irish butter, Yorkshire pudding, ham, sweet potatoes, fresh cut corn, dips and gourmet crackers. It is endless and delicious and all done to perfection.

The yard has thousands of perennials that have been split and transplanted and transplanted again.  Butterfly bushes, bicycle rims and blue glass bottles make a collage of light and reflection that makes it difficult to focus on just one thing for long.  A path in the garden leads you in one direction but then as soon as you arrive you are drawn to the wooden swing "over there."  The large wooden deck in the center of the yard begs for you to put your feet up while enjoying a glass of wine. So you do.

Fresh lavender, burning candles, endless bottles of wine and the Rolling Stones playing in the background make everyday a party, or at the very least, an event at my mom's house.  On any given day you can walk into her house and she has huge baskets of fresh lavender from her garden that she is cutting, tying, hanging to dry, into little mussy tussies. Who does that?

Beauty, that is what she is about, she surrounds herself and her family with beauty.  With every turn of the eye no detail has been ignored, no corner hasn't been addressed.  Every room has oodles of plants, flowers, glass carts, white slipcovered chairs, candles, I think my mom is the one that actually invented shabby chic.

A constant tornado of detail.

When I started to decorate my current house I was drawn to items that were "cool" or "neat" but forgot about beauty.  My house became cold and it lost my personality.  Now when I pick up something at the store, before I buy it I ask myself, "is it beautiful?" This helps me every time.  I don't want things around me that aren't beautiful anymore, I want to surround my family with beauty, I want to see beauty in every corner.

A Renaissance Woman is hard to find these days. A woman that gets in the mud and gardens, goes for hour-long walks, trades and picks stocks, makes breakfast, lunch and dinner, paints, reads, talks politics, listens to the Stones and still finds time to fill every bathroom with flowers. They are a dying breed, killed off by landscaping companies, stockbrokers, gyms, nail salons and the mall.  To often woman are finding salons and lunch dates a priority over gardening, a good book and playing cards with friends.

We need to find our womanhood, we need to find pride within ourselves when looking at our six-foot tall sunflowers, or knowing what a rutabaga is and how to cook it. Or has womanhood changed? Is the era gone when the home, the dinner table, and flowers are a priority?

I know every woman's priority is different and each of us has different likes and interests.  Many of us will never care if we have a properly set table, or find it a priority to grow our own Basil, but to my mom, it is an art, and an art at which she has found success. An art that allows her to cook with her own herbs, cut her own centerpieces and feed 50 at Thanksgiving.

Perhaps we aren't educated in these matters today, perhaps all we feel we need is a fork on the table? Maybe a tree here and some annuals there do the trick? To some, that is beautiful, to others, a greenhouse is a place to call home.  What makes her recognize that she is worthy of surrounding herself with flowers and beauty? Maybe each of us needs to start by buying the bunch of flowers at the store and place them on our kitchen table tonight, "just because." We need to live in our homes, paint the bathroom magenta and stop just existing. We need to allow ourselves to take over our gardens and yards and really create something, not just mow them.  

To my mom, there are no paper napkins, there are no paper plates.  To her, a yard with grass is a blank canvas ready to be taken over, ready to "paint."  For my mom, the way to get to the side yard is not by walking on grass, but is an opportunity to create a path edged by lavender and roses. Nothing is mundane, nothing neat and tidy, but everything filled and with purpose.  To eat is to experience, to drink wine is to travel to the vineyard and to garden is to create your world.  My mom's world is an experience of all of it, and if you want to eat over for Christmas brunch, you better come hungry and know which fork to use!

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