wise heart
I am in the middle of the Great Sewing Room Rearrangement Project. I can’t even begin to describe how much work this job is entailing. Perhaps when it is all completed I will take the time to detail it all out for you. Trust me, you will think I am a hero.
Anyway, as part of this job, I am throwing away a lot of stuff. I found this quote today on a crumpled up piece of paper and fell in love with it all over again (probably because last night when I emerged from the sewing room and found the kitchen a complete and utter disaster I lost my cool and was nothing like the woman in this quote, I was more like a raging lunatic. I have been filled with regret all day and want to imprint these words on my heart and live them. Really live them. Treat my children as the divine beings they are…ahhh, will I ever master it?
It is the sisters and wives and mothers, you know, Caddie, who keep the world sweet and beautiful. What a rough world it would be if there were only men and boys in it, doing things in their own way! A woman’s task is to teach them gentleness and courtesy and love and kindness. It’s a big task too, Caddie – harder than cutting trees or building mills or damming rivers. It takes nerve and courage and patience, but good women have those things. They have them just as much as men who build bridges and carve roads through wilderness. A woman’s work is something fine and noble to grow up to, and it is just as important as a man’s. But no man could ever do it so well. I don’t want you to be a silly, affected person with fine clothes and manners who folks sometimes call a lady. No, that is not what I want for you, my little girl. I want you to be a woman with a wise and understanding heart, healthy in body and honest in mind.
(Father speaking to Caddie in Caddie Woodlawn…one of my favorite books.)
And now I can throw the crumpled up paper away!
I'm Tracy, a mama with big dreams, crazy ideas, loads of laughter, an insatiable desire to learn, and enormous piles of laundry.
I LOVE that book and the lesson it teaches! Awesome quote…
I haven’t read this book in years. I love this quote though, it is definitely something that I needed to hear. Thanks so much for sharing.
I can’t even read that quote because it will make me cry. So I’m squeezing my eyes shut as I type this. Tell me if I made typos.
Also. You can’t just talk about a big sewing room project without posting before and after photos. Blogging 101, yo.
I’m having a really hard time reading the quote, too. It breaks my heart because of personal reasons that are too sad to type on a public forum. Your very worst day is nothing compared to the way I raised my children. Always screaming, hitting, demanding, always gone, absent. Always thinking I had other thing to do besides stay home and raise kiddos. I so regret all those years. Thank goodness for Caddie and her Father.