Driftwood.
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure. For my mother, driftwood was treasure. She was a country girl, born and raised in Coke County, Texas, and I remember that, even after she’d been grown and married and had long since left Coke County, she had a love affair with driftwood. At least, that’s what I always called it, and I think she did.
It’s quite possible we were using the term inaccurately. I just looked up a definition or a few. One dictionary says that driftwood is “wood drifted or floated by water.” Another describes driftwood as “wood that has been washed onto a shore or beach of a sea, lake, or river by the action of winds, tides or waves.”
The wood that Mom was on the lookout for was, to be more precise, generally pieces of mesquite, the kind of wood Coke County has in plenty. What the county doesn’t have a great deal of is water upon which such wood could “drift.” Seas and lakes and, thus, shores and beaches, are not in large supply. These days, especially, with rivers dammed or diverted upstream and the droughts that have oppressed a large part of the area, even the bodies of water that remain have barely remained. When a lake is estimated to be two percent full, I assume that means ninety-eight percent empty, and even if it manages after rare rains to ramp on up to eleven or twelve percent full, it can be a pretty good hike from the end of a little-used boat ramp to actual water. And managing to drown in what passes in West Texas for a river or creek may take some effort. And yet I’m sure that a once-in-a-blue-moon “gully washer” might fill up a creek enough to wash out some mesquite.
But most of the pieces of mesquite Mom considered treasures were just old pieces of broken down or “cleared” trees that ranchers in the area are happy to grub out, pull down, pile up, and be rid of. And that is where Mom had a valuable ally. My Granddaddy Key, her father, was a rancher in Coke County, raising and trucking cattle and sheep. Granddaddy had plenty of occasion to run across exactly the kind of treasure Mom was after.
I remember, as a boy growing up in Amarillo, Texas, the wonderful times when Granddaddy and Grandmother would come to visit. In the back of his pickup bed (a place my younger brother and I loved to climb around in as we became cowboys, Indians, or various brands of soldiers) was almost always a load of mesquite wood pieces.
For a good many years, Mom would take those pieces of wood, pick out the best ones, clean them up, drill through them in the right places, and thread in the wiring, “lamp pipe,” and sockets. She would apply varnish, affix some artificial greenery and/or flowers, install a bulb or a few and an in-line switch, and add a lampshade if such was called for. That piece of “driftwood” mesquite was transformed into quite an ornate table lamp, television lamp, or night light. Mom was creative enough to work with a wide range of sizes. I can only imagine how many folks received these sweet craft pieces as completely unique gifts. For Mom, and for my grandfather, I’m sure, the whole process was a pleasure.
Handcrafted. The word itself says a lot. And a large part of the wonder of such a creation is that it is often made of the most common materials. What is uncommon is the eye that sees the beauty residing in the “ordinary.” You can’t get more ordinary than a mesquite tree. Ah, but Mom saw the beauty.
Eyes to see beauty. Eyes to see potential that many might look right past. How thankful we should be for parents, friends, teachers, and all of those who have seen in you and me something worth cultivating and encouraging, something precious and beautiful that might remain dormant were it not for eyes of wisdom and love.
Don’t doubt for a moment that our God sees us with such eyes. All of the time.
Copyright 2024 by Curtis K. Shelburne. Permission to copy without altering text or for monetary gain is hereby granted subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.