My daughter is an athlete and a pretty good one. When the Covid 19 lockdown happened in March, her world ended. There would be no basketball provincials, no provincial camp tryouts, no volleyball games, and no track and field. We were healthy and safe, right? Absolutely. However, for a 13 year old, her social life and her mental health were tied to her activities. And all of the activities had stopped.
To distract us from thinking about all that was missing, we decided that we needed a project. This happened to take form in a coat of paint for her room and the refinishing of my mother's old writing desk. Mom's desk was sort of an antique... one that I had ruined with a bottle of nail polish remover when I was a teenager. It was the most important thing in my childhood bedroom. When my mom died, it was the one thing I wanted to make sure I took with me. It was also only natural that it would go to live in my daughter's room when we moved houses. However, the finish still looked the same as the time I had wrecked it and it was time to give it a new life.
The two of us sanded and buffed and repainted the old desk. We replace the hardware and filled in the cracks. My carpenter husband was appalled at a coat of paint instead of refinishing it, but it was a labour of love. She was so proud of her project. She was distracted, but she did not clue in. When we placed it in her room and she put her own belongings on the shelves it finally became her own. Where my mom had written her letters and cards was now getting the newest generational rendition. And the tradition of writing at the writing desk is continuing through her hands now.