Finding the Beauty and Peace in Ordinary Things

I have always loved  cozy, flea market furniture and dumpster finds, even before "Shabby Chic" became "Chic." I have wonderful memories in my Grandmother's kitchen at her distressed wooden dining table where the chairs didn't match. I was fascinated with the narrow rust rivulets on her stove and it's chipped and yellowing enamel. I adored the dried herbs and dried flowers that hung from the beams in her pantry, and the old armchair near the wood stove that had seen better days.  I wanted to sit there forever helping her can, preserve, shuck corn and snap beans.  Most of all I loved that nothing was new and everything had a story and a reason for being in her home.  

I do so appreciate things that are imperfect, primitive and incomplete. My father instilled into me from a young age, a gentle rebellion against globalized mass production.  That must be why I love Franklin, Tennessee. Franklin is gracefully weathered, rusty and exactly matches my own proclivities. Franklin is flea markets, not warehouse stores; aged wood, not laminate.  Franklin respects age and celebrates humans over invulnerable machines.  It finds beauty in cracks and crevices and all the marks that time, weather and use leave behind.  Franklin finds beauty in imperfection and profundity in nature, accepting the cycle of growth, decay and death. It is slow and uncluttered and regards authenticity above all, the glory and the impersonal sadness of age spots, rust and frayed edges and the march of time they represent.