Why Pine Basket? It represents a certain simplicity to me.
Not so much like a pine box... although I suppose, in the end, that is all that's needed. For me anyway. I've told folks before that I wanted my ashes put in the compost - then have a roasting party when the corn comes in.
My pine basket came from by great aunt's room in the spinster school teachers' home after she passed away. I never really knew her. She was so old that she rarely attended family events and eventually just seemed to fade away. She lived in a once-grand home on Highland Avenue that had been converted to house others like her. I was 12 then, and asked to help pack up her effects. Always a treasure hunter, I enjoyed the task. Alone in her room with only dust mites that swarmed whenever I moved anything.
The basket is the one thing that reminds me of her and of that task. It became my sewing basket 45 years ago and still is. As it has frayed over the years, I have been enchanted by its rope of pine needles. It takes me to a place where I contemplate the purposeful process of its creation and gain a sense of peaceful simplicity.
Not so much like a pine box... although I suppose, in the end, that is all that's needed. For me anyway. I've told folks before that I wanted my ashes put in the compost - then have a roasting party when the corn comes in.
My pine basket came from by great aunt's room in the spinster school teachers' home after she passed away. I never really knew her. She was so old that she rarely attended family events and eventually just seemed to fade away. She lived in a once-grand home on Highland Avenue that had been converted to house others like her. I was 12 then, and asked to help pack up her effects. Always a treasure hunter, I enjoyed the task. Alone in her room with only dust mites that swarmed whenever I moved anything.
The basket is the one thing that reminds me of her and of that task. It became my sewing basket 45 years ago and still is. As it has frayed over the years, I have been enchanted by its rope of pine needles. It takes me to a place where I contemplate the purposeful process of its creation and gain a sense of peaceful simplicity.