Books and Quilts

Sitting with our books at the Pearl S. Buck Quilt and Garden Show, we had a lovely view of some stunning quilts. Color and pattern were all around us, including some beautiful sunflowers above our heads blooming for all they were worth.

            Sunflowers always remind me of the fullness of summer, the smell of corn in the field and the taste of just picked tomatoes in my mouth. I can see my father at the grill as I help my mother shuck the corn for dinner, my brothers screaming and chasing one another with cold water from the hose.

            We ate on the screened porch in the summer, sat there for the occasional summer thunderstorm, played cards and listened to the music of Frank Sinatra, my mother’s favorite singer.

            This one part of my childhood remembered because I sat under a hanging quilt.

                We writers find inspiration everywhere but finding it at the Pearl Buck house and gardens is special. We are surrounded there by the things that inspired a true artist, the little things of a life filled with family and purpose. Sure, we can see the prizes she won and the typewriter she used and that can be inspiring. But I like to see the table where she ate with her children and the books she read to them in her bedroom. I like the view from the different parts of the house and I imagine she watched her children run around much as I watched mine.

We can visit the house and grounds and then take it home with us to use in turn in our own work or to keep us company when we struggle to find the right phrase, the perfect word. Such is the fulfillment of a writer’s dream, a writer’s summer.
                                                                                         Susan Wagner