the swans

we've been living with my in-laws for the past 4 and a half months while we do a home renvoation project. it's been interesting. it's been hard. it's been wonderful. it's been over the summer so slowly our kids have come home from colleges and travel and the house has expanded and now is beginning to shrink again. as it always has.

this is the house we returned to on fulough during our decade in uganda. this house is a haven. these people, mike's parents, have welcomed us over and over, no matter what or when, or what was happening in their lives, again and again. there was always a space and a place for us here. we have had seasons where we rebuilt here, where we came so broken down that we didn't know how to go on, and this was our safe space. i'm so deeply grateful for his parents and for this home. 

this home gave my children a groundedness during years of overseas life. this was US home base. it's where they first remember seeing snow, where they did a semester of elementary school, where they began to develop their understanding of their american identities. the consistency provided by these 3 acres and Marmi's pies was essential for each of my kids to trust that life may throw curveballs but there is steadiness. it fleshed out the constant presence of God. 

this house was built when my husband was in middle school and his father did all the finish carpentry. they worked together all summer hammering and staining floors, tiling and painting. it is the same house i came to as an 18 year old when i began dating my husband, it was large and fancy and full of art. 

while Poppi built much of the house, we call it Marmi and Poppi's house. she made all the curtains, picked out the furniture, cleans it, cooks most of the meals and manages the aesthetic. she loves fine things. she had a humble beginning, born on her grandmothers farm in the big brass bed, the only one of 4 sisters to attend university. she left the small town of dallas wisconsin, married a new zealander and they settled in the boston area. she is an artist at her core, and her home is filled with paintings- both hers and others she's collected. marmi took a job with delta airlines which opened up the world for the family. travel was a major part of my husbands childhood. europe, africa, new zealand, bermuda, he even went to the prom on the eiffel tower. 

marmi deeply loves beauty and beautiful experiences. she talks about the english countryside and painting the hills and sheep, and of provence and the fields of flowers or hay bales.  sometimes she would bring back some treasure that she found, a gold bracelet from greece, a porcelain sculpture from china, but what i remember the most is the swans.

the swans were purchased in england and shipped over to the US before i met my husband. they lived in the basement in anticipation of their eventual placement in the garden outside of an art studio yet to be built. 

marmi's painting studio for most of her life was in the basement. it was a place of privacy, quiet, and  escape but there was no natural light. she dreamed of a true artists studio, full of light, with a palladian window overlooking a garden, displaying her swans. she dreamed and she saved for this space for decades. those swans were her hope. purchased from her art sales, they were a symbol of her promise to herself to have that studio. 

after she retired from delta, about 25 years after buying those swans, my husband who had since become an architect, designed a studio for her and it was built, palladian window and all. and leading the charge are the 2 swans atop of granite bases. 

if i'm honest, i used to hate those swans. i thought they were ridiculous. that they were an extravagant purchase, a silly use of money especially since they sat in the basement for 25 years. but now i see them so differently, i see so much more.

these are not typical swan sculptures. not the imagined serene birds calmly paddling through a pond. they are they exact opposite. the swans are 2 feet high each. their beaks are fully open, tongues slightly curled, clearly sounding an alarm. their eyes are wide and alert, necks swung forward in a C, wings are pulled back ready for either flight or fight. they are making themselves known. they are full of emotion, in distress and appear to be trying to get attention, yet they are frozen in place. it reminds me of the white witch in narnia, who with the wave of her magic wand, petrifies the animals turning them into stone in mid-motion. the only thing that can unfreeze them is Aslan's breath. 

i think for 25 years those swans represented more that the dream of a studio, they also symbolized parts of Marmi, as they squawked passionately from the basement but were frozen in the silence of bronze. they are wanting so desperately to be heard, to be seen, to be known fully, waiting for Aslan's breath.

in C.S. Lewis's Narnia, Aslan represents Jesus. Jesus who knows us fully. who see's our years of painting in the basement without natural light, who knew that Marmi needed that studio with a palladian window. who sees our years of needing to return to the same place on furlough and provided that stability. who knew that my kids needed her pies and paintings as part of their safe space, their identity. 

a week ago we found out that Marmi has a non-treatable cancer. she is 89 years old but of course no one wants this diagnosis for themselves or their loved ones. somehow this news has landed for her like aslan's breath, freeing. there is something unfrozen now, that i can only explain as God's grace. 

our renovation is almost done. in 2 weeks we will move back thankfully only 2 miles down the street. our home has a very different style. we don't have fancy things, mostly our collected treasures are reminders of our ugandan life. but as i look out marmi's palladian window, i am so grateful for those swans. for their final landing in the garden, for their position in mid-motion reminding me of how we can get stuck, frozen, silenced but that we are seen and known fully and freed in God's love.