What Inspires Me: “In my home I have a boat. It was made by an artist named Cathy Rose. The boat signifies everything I can love in an object. It was crafted by hand. It contains the spirit of the human heart. My solace is water and the boat symbolizes adventure. In very tiny letters, embossed on the boat it says, “home.”
The boat lived in my bedroom. When my peace was interrupted by a renovation project, I carefully removed the boat and placed it out of harm’s way. But when the project was finished and it was time to restore sanity, the boat had disappeared. I questioned all the workers, I begged them to tell me what happened. The boat is very fragile, it was entirely reasonable that the boat had been accidentally damaged. But no, they assured me, they had no memory of the boat. It has disappeared.
I was bereft. I asked Cathy to make me another one. She was unable to do so. She sent me another little porcelain bird, she said to keep me company “until my ship came in.”
One year passed. Of course I had given up hope of ever seeing my boat again. And then one spring day I was looking out my kitchen window and on the gray stone rocks in my garden there lay an object. It was white and small and it had not been there the day before.
I dashed outside, afraid to believe what I already knew. The boat had returned. It was filled with soggy brown leaves. My ship had come in. There is magic in the handmade. It contains hope and wisdom and my Inspiration.