Beautiful Going With the Flow…

05 Wednesday Aug 2026

Posted by Satin & Sand in Art, Relationships, Poetry, Birds, Painting

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Poetry, Painting, watercolor, Summer, Family, Duck

_{© Joan Currie – My duck watercolor/gouache painting.}

Going With the Flow by Joan Currie

I spent most of this summer
visiting my family.
My favorite place to be.

To be part of this tribe,
I have to abandon
my carefully curated diet,
exercise routine,
and sleep schedule

for

s’mores at bonfires on the beach,
slushies at action-adventure movies,
peanut butter and jam picnic
sandwiches,

sleeping in tents beneath the stars,
splash pads,
paddle boarding on the Sound.

No contest.

I know
these summers
may not come again.

Despite my longing
for control,
routine,
consistency,

when the call for a new
adventure comes,

I look into the eyes
of my marvelous family

and say,

Let’s go!

Beautiful My Mother’s Afternoon Tea…

22 Wednesday Jul 2026

Posted by Satin & Sand in Baking, Daily Life, Food, Poetry, Reflections, Teacup

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Afternoon tea, English china teacups, Mother, Poetry, Teacup

_{© Joan Currie – Some of my mother’s teacups.}

My Mother’s Afternoon Tea by Joan Currie

My mother served
afternoon tea
at four o’clock
every afternoon
of her life.

When I was growing up,
one neighbor or another
would show up
for some orange pekoe tea,
poured into fine English teacups.

But mostly
they came for her baking:

lemon tarts, raspberry Danish,
sherry cake, and
chocolate fudge brownies.

They never seemed shy
about taking
a second helping,
or a third,

rarely leaving enough
for our family.

When I was older,
I asked my mother
why she was never invited
to tea
at their homes.

She smiled.

“There are two kinds of people
in this world:

givers
and takers.

I want to be
a giver.”

Beautiful Girl With a Rabbit…

14 Tuesday Jul 2026

Posted by Satin & Sand in Animals, Art, Depression, Mother, Painting, Poetry

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Art, Durer, Mother, Poetry, van Aelst

_{© Joan Currie – My painting of my mother with a rabbit in her lap.} _Acrylic.

Girl With a Rabbit by Joan Currie

When my mother
was a child,
she sat for an artist
with a rabbit on her lap.

The pose was very formal–
the rabbit, Düreresque;
the roses beside her,
worthy of van Aelst.

When she saw the finished portrait,
she begged her parents to buy it.

The Depression allowed
no such extravagance,
nor the Church
such vanity.

The painting was forgotten

until my mother nearing
her ninetieth birthday,
asked me to find it.

It was all she wanted.

Alas, art dealers
and auction catalogues
yielded nothing.

I could not grant
her last wish.

Years after she was gone,

I painted

a girl with a rabbit.

She looks like my mother.

I hope she can see it.

Beautiful Eau Sauvage…

08 Wednesday Jul 2026

Posted by Satin & Sand in Aging, beautiful, Father, Poetry, Reflections

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Christian Dior fragrance, Eau Sauvage, Hospice, Poetry

_{© Joan Currie – My father’s aftershave}

Eau Sauvage by Joan Currie

On a trip to Paris,
after a college year abroad,
I bought my father
a bottle of
Eau Sauvage aftershave.

I don’t know why.
Perhaps I was seduced by the
elegant Christian Dior
fragrance counter.
Or was it a friend’s urging?

He wasn’t a man
who wore cologne.

But after receiving that gift,
he wore its fresh lemon scent
for the rest of his life.

Even in hospice,
after my brother handed me
my father’s shaving kit,
a daily ritual
became a final sacrament.

I drew the razor
across his three-day stubble.

He always said
I had healing hands.

I ran tepid water
into a stainless steel bowl,
rinsed his face clean,
and dried it gently
with his well-worn terry-cloth towel.

The final act
was pouring a few drops
of Eau Sauvage
into my palms

and patting his smooth cheeks
just as he had done
a thousand times before.

I felt he knew
I was there,

in communion with him

one last time.

Amen.

Beautiful Blue Velvet Ribbons…

30 Tuesday Jun 2026

Posted by Satin & Sand in Art, Drawing, Painting, Reflections, watercolor

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Art, Childhood, Fashion, memory, Poetry, watercolor

_{© Joan Currie – Art from my camp truck.}

Blue Velvet Ribbons by Joan Currie

I came across
my old summer camp trunk
in the attic.

Inside were thick folders,
tied with sky-blue velvet ribbons.

I knew what lay within:

pencil crayon drawings
of my blond cocker spaniel,
seagulls at the beach,
ducks on the pond,
and my younger brother
in his Mountie costume.

But my favorites
were the paper doll fashions–

wedding gowns
painted in soft watercolor,
headdresses
with sunbursts and roses,
crowns and tiaras,
and Della Robbia wreaths
laden with flowers and fruit.

I made them
on rainy Sunday afternoons.

They were shown
to no one.

I wasn’t waiting
for praise or advice.

The making
was enough.

Each dress
belonged to an imagined life
I carried quietly,
as tenderly
as a child carries
a small secret.

Years later
I showed them
to my daughters.

Already,
they were better artists
than I had ever been.

They smiled,
admired them,
but declined
to add another dress
to the collection.

Perhaps,
one day,
a grandchild
will untie
the blue ribbons,

lift out the folders,

and begin again.

Beautiful Low Tide…

15 Monday Jun 2026

Posted by Satin & Sand in beautiful, Photography, Poetry, Sea

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Beachcombing, Puget Sound, Sea, Sea glass, Sea wrack, Tides

_{© Joan Currie – My sea glass treasures found at low tide.}

Low Tide by Joan Currie

At full tide,

my view of the Sound
was postcard perfect–

deep ultramarine water dotted with
sailboats and kayaks,
a seaplane landing,
the Olympics in the distance.

But at low tide,
the water recedes
some thirteen feet.

Now a broad beach face
dominates the seascape.

I climb down from the seawall
and begin picking my way
through the sea’s offerings:

timber and polished driftwood,
acorn barnacles perched atop rocks
like gnome caps,
kelp blades,
shucked oyster shells,
and harbor jellyfish.

Walking north,
I search the beach ridges
for treasures hidden
among the dense pebbles.

Seeing none, I turn back.

Then suddenly,
a flash between the stones–

a frosted pale-blue shard of
sea glass,
then another,
this one pale emerald green.

With each step,
another tiny treasure appears–

even a coveted piece
of cobalt blue.

I slip them into my pockets
and scan the beach for more gifts
until I reach the wall
and the tide has turned.

The show is over.

Not so Beautiful Bastard Cabbages…

12 Friday Jun 2026

Posted by Satin & Sand in Flowers, Garden, Poetry, Reflections

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Garden, Nurturing, Original poetry, Poetry, Weeds

Bastard Cabbages by Joan Currie

I pulled out the last of them
with the point of a
rock climbing pick.

The dirt was hard–
their stems thick as rhubarb.

Then it rained
for five days straight.

Bastard Cabbages returned,
invading my sweet garden,

their leaves spreading wide
like skirts of French court gowns.

But such extravagance
left little room
for daisies, snapdragons, and
sweet peas
started from seed.

I carved out a space
around the tiny flowers.
They, too, needed
light and air.

Could I keep
such a place?

Beautiful View From the Deck…

02 Tuesday Jun 2026

Posted by Satin & Sand in Aging, Art, beautiful, Father, Grief, Poetry

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Aging, Father, Grief, Moving to a care facility, Parents' aging, Parkinson's Disease

_{© Joan Currie – Cargo ship on the Burrard Inlet, Vancouver.} _{My father and I loved to watch these ships together.}

View From the Deck by Joan Currie

I grieved for my father
most

when he and my mother
left their beloved home
for a care facility.

It came gradually.

The accumulation
of small difficulties,
increasing in severity
day after day.

The tremor in his hand
that spilled food down
the front of his shirt.

The scrapes on his face
from crashing into a wall
when he could no longer
stop his forward gait.

A fractured collarbone
the surgeon refused to pin.

Nightmares
that haunted his sleep.

Bottles and bottles
of expired medication
in the medicine chest.

An unbalanced checkbook
and papers strewn across his desk.

He was such a gentle man–
rarely complaining.

Perhaps it was a mercy,
not fully knowing
how far the disease
had progressed.

I wanted him to remain at home,
surrounded by the things he loved:

the view from the deck,
giant container ships
forging their way inland,

vivid sunsets,

blue hydrangeas,

art books opened
in his favorite wingback chair
beside the fire.

In the end,
he left the house quietly.

Who knows
how much he understood–

of his illness,

or where he stood
in the world.

Beautiful Nana…

30 Saturday May 2026

Posted by Satin & Sand in Aging, Art, beautiful, Fashion, Flowers, Poetry, Reflections, Relationships

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Aging, Flower power, Grandmother, Grandmother-granddaughter, Longfellow, Memoir, Poetry

_{© Joan Currie – My Nana’s pearls and flower power dress fabric.}

My Nana – by Joan Currie

I adored my paternal grandmother,
Nana.

She looked very much
like the Queen Mother–
not only in her coloring
but in the way she dressed.

Heavy silk dresses,
a string of pearls,
a brooch pinned neatly below her neckline.

She was always prim and proper,
her expression composed,
though it softened into a lovely smile
when we sang “Happy Birthday,”
when she beat me at checkers,
and especially when she offered
a slice of lemon meringue
or apple pie,
still warm from the oven.

One day she wore a dress
my mother had sewn for her
from fabric covered
in flowers the color of
those in the flower power
advertisements.

I looked at her in wonder.

“Wild flowers!” I declared.

She giggled then–
a light, girlish sound
I had never heard before.

For an instant,
I caught sight of someone
other than my dutiful Nana:

a young woman
bright with life,
still there beneath
the silk dresses and pearls.

It was enchanting!

The following passage was in a note Nana once wrote to me:

Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme,
Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay;
Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime,
For O! it is not always May!

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
It is Not Always May

Beautiful Simplicity 9825…

21 Thursday May 2026

Posted by Satin & Sand in Crafts, Fashion, Mother, Poetry, Sewing

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Coming of Age, Elna sewing machine, Handmade, Nostalgia, Original poetry, Poetry, Prom dress, Sewing, Sewing pattern, Sewing room, Simplicity 9825

_{© Joan Currie – My mother’s sewing room with her Elna sewing machine.}

Simplicity 9825 by Joan Currie

I taught myself to sew
in my teenage years,
on my mother’s Elna machine
in a corner of our basement.

The sewing room was a hodgepodge
of fabric and notions
left there for the taking.

Abandoned pattern pieces
lay scattered across the big
Formica counter
beside boxes of straight pins,
thimbles, pinking shears,
measuring tapes.

Three deep drawers held
a jumble of thread spools,
button and snap cards, lace,
sequins in narrow tubes,
bits of tailor’s chalk.

The cupboards were crammed
with tweeds from the woolen mills,
velvets, tulle, corduroy,
and raw silk from her travels.

On Saturday afternoons
I slipped downstairs
with a Simplicity pattern
and my transistor radio,

and entered
that pulsing, glorious world
where a flat piece of cloth
became my prom dress.