When we step into a room with a wooden floor, our hard soles resounding, we feel it confident and solid beneath our feet. Someone skillfully fashioned the boards from beautiful trees in a most practical way. We can easily sweep crumbs off the wooden floor, and wipe up spills. We can condition it with some oil and refinish as necessary. It’s always real and it was only slightly modified from material in nature. It’s not just that a wooden floor isn’t carpet or laminate tiles. It’s not just that it is easier to keep clean and goes with everything. It’s that it is a healthy and natural substance that pleases our utilitarian needs, our aesthetic ones, and that of our sensitive souls.
It’s not just the wooden floor. Many of us yearn for brick, stone, fire, wool, cotton, linen, leather, and iron. These materials were masterfully reshaped from nature into beauty and good use and have served us well for ages.
Plastic is a wonderful invention. Think of its uses in medicine, for example. But now that our children’s toys and many of our goods, even clothing are made of it, we’re weary of the sight and feel of it. We long for goods that are as useful and durable as they are beautiful and tactically pleasing. We regret the descent into consumer madness as it means we can now justify paying less for more because we realize it was a trick. We’re not really getting more when our household items don’t last and barely bring us pleasure while they do.
And there is something else about timeless natural materials like wood. When I step on a wooden surface or terracotta tiles or a rock floor, I instantly feel connected to my ancestors. Many of them stepped on these surfaces, certainly not plastic carpeting. It seems silly. Yet, when mundane or difficult tasks wear on me every now and then, I draw strength from the knowledge that I’m here because others carried on these same tasks before me. Their steps sounded like mine as they worked. And they kept finding food. They kept cooking. They kept raising children. They kept creating wonderful things in the midst of great hardship and turmoil.
Right now many of us find ourselves craving a simple and meaningful life, surrounded by beauty. One great way to do that is to minimize plastics in our home environment and to plant some flowers, frame our own art or photographs, and bake some bread. In other words, create what we can versus purchasing all the time.
My family and I have worked to create some simple but decent things. I’ve painted some of our furniture, surprised at how well it turned out with a bit of love and patience. I cook almost all our food from scratch. My husband grows vegetables in our garden as well as some plum and fig. He also makes things out of wood like our bed, a pull-out desk I have used so I can read and write while on the treadmill, a computer desk, our dinner table, and a small table with benches for our kids to do messy activities on. I’m not the best with sewing but luckily, our daughter is rather adept, and hopes to advance her skills in coming years. Our son is in charge of our chickens and is good with a wood burning pen. We try to spend our time doing meaningful things that help us be healthy and offer us beauty. And believe me, my blueberry cheesecake is a thing of beauty.
So this is about much more than the wooden floor. I simply think that for many people, one of their most recognizable and widespread desires related to quality materials just so happens to be it.