This has been a good week for pie. One of my sisters came to visit, and while she was here, I finally made a real pie crust. I baked a mixed fruit pie with apples, blueberries, blackberries, cherries, and plums. It was a yummy pie, especially since it has been well over a year since I’ve made any real crust.

Another pie-tastic thing that happened was that my husband gave me this adorable and hilarious piece of art:

My favorite pie event, however, was today’s project. I repainted my great grandmother’s pie safe. It’s super old, and my dear mother was gracious enough to bring it to me when she visited us.

My son helped me with the sanding this morning, and I spent the remainder of today painting it red–my favorite color. I’m looking forward to filling it with pie plates, pie birds, and cookbooks.
I never saw the pie safe when it belonged to Macye Pearl Talley Rice and her husband, Amos Armfield Rice. I know, though, that back then this kind of furniture was used to hold not only pies, but also other baked goods and foods that one wanted to keep safe from animals or hungry people. I noticed a key hole, but the key was lost long ago.

When I was growing up in Virginia, my dad kept this pie safe by his workbench. It held screws, spare parts, and whatever else landed in it. For me, it holds strong memories of my dad. He saved lots of stuff, because he could fix anything–with anything. He hung onto stuff that he thought might be useful, and it often was. I remember him once fixing a windshield wiper with part of butter knife.

Today, while I was painting, our daughter was with some friends at one of those places where you can zipline, cliff jump into water, and some other fun (read:dangerous) stuff. She laughed at me when I asked all about it, and I was calm enough signing a waiver, but as I painted that pie safe, I wished I could put her in it. I know that’s crazy, but as a parent, sometimes we just feel like we can’t do enough to keep our kids safe.

And we can’t. They’ve gotta be out there in the world, doing the cool stuff. A few hours into the project, I got this text:

Didn’t die on cliff jump or zip line.

My response:
Thank you.
For not dying.
Having fun?

And she was. So much fun. That’s the thing. Sometimes, the super-fun, awesome, beautiful things in life are just not safe. Like surfing, or swimming where there might be jellyfish, or roller coasters, or flying, or singing in front of people, or sledding down the big hill, or eating something delicious and weird, or loving people with all you’ve got.
Not always safe–definitely risky–totally worth it.

If you keep those tasty pies locked up for too long, people are gonna miss the chance to experience something delicious. Beautiful. Totally worth it.

I’m so glad she had fun today, and I’m so thrilled that the pie safe has made it into the house to make new memories with us.

Today, I resolve to remember this: Keeping people and life “safe” is one way we can choose to live, but it’s a terrible danger to miss out on the tastiest parts of life because of fear. Let us unlock our hearts and courageously take a bite of today–definitely risky–totally worth it.