How Honeysuckle Lane Was Born

I have been thinking about telling you this story for a while.

It's vulnerable.

And perhaps a little embarrassing.

But I think it may explain Honeysuckle Lane better than anything else I could write.

Many years ago, I was a young mother with a house full of children.

Those children are grown now, and they have become the most extraordinary adults. I would go back and live those noisy years again in a heartbeat—the shoes by the door, the endless laundry, the missing permission slips, the dinners nobody liked after I had spent an hour making them.

But there is something I remember about those years that doesn't show up in the photographs.

I was lonely.

Not alone.

Lonely.

There is a difference.

I could be standing in a room full of people and feel lonely.

I could go to church and feel lonely.

I could sit beside my husband and feel lonely.

I could have children climbing all over me, someone asking for a snack, someone looking for a shoe, someone shouting "Mom!" from another room—

and somehow, underneath all that wonderful noise, I could still feel terribly alone.

There were reasons for it. Life was complicated in ways that don't really need explaining here.

I just needed encouragement.

I needed something that said,

I see you.

This is for you.

There is something good coming.

And so I did the strangest little thing.

I started signing up for catalogs.

So many catalogs.

If there was a little box somewhere on the internet that said "Send me a catalog," I was apparently the woman keeping the United States Postal Service in business.

Pottery catalogs. Clothing catalogs. Garden catalogs. Home catalogs.

I didn't even need to buy anything.

That wasn't really the point.

The point was that every now and then, I would walk out to the mailbox and there would be something there with my name on it.

Something that had come just for me.

And for one tiny moment in an ordinary day, I had something to look forward to.

It seems a little sad to me now.

But I also have tremendous tenderness for that younger version of myself.

She wasn't looking for a catalog.

She just wanted to be seen.

A small reminder that she hadn't disappeared somewhere between the laundry and the grocery store and everybody else's needs.

She wanted to open the mailbox and find a tiny bit of sunshine waiting inside.

And maybe that is where Honeysuckle Lane really began.

Long before Lucy.

Long before the watercolor paintings.

Long before I dreamed up a little town with stories and neighbors and flowers growing along the fences.

Maybe Honeysuckle Lane began with a lonely young mother standing at a mailbox.

Life looks very different now.

And I am enormously grateful for that.

Those little children grew up, and somehow—despite my many mistakes—they became the most remarkable adults I could ever have imagined.

I have wonderful friends.

I'm married to a wonderful person who is my best friend.

My days are full of people I love, paintings I want to paint, stories I want to tell, and far more ideas than there will ever be hours to accomplish them.

And yet...

I have never forgotten that woman at the mailbox.

Because somewhere today, there is another one.

Maybe she is raising children and hasn't had a real conversation with another grown-up all day.

Maybe her children have just left home, and the house is much quieter than she thought it would be.

Maybe she is caring for aging parents.

Maybe she moved somewhere new.

Maybe she lost someone.

Maybe she is surrounded by perfectly lovely people and cannot explain why she still feels lonely.

Or maybe she isn't lonely at all.

Maybe life is simply moving too fast and she would like one small thing each month that asks absolutely nothing of her.

No appointment to remember.

No password.

No notification.

No algorithm.

Just an envelope.

With her name on it.

That is Honeysuckle Lane.

Once a month, I sit down with my paints and my stories and create something that will eventually travel from my table to your mailbox.

There will be original art.

There will be a letter from the Lane.

There will be little paper treasures tucked inside.

You will get to know the houses and the seasons and the people who live here.

You will hear the neighborhood news.

And, of course, there is Lucy.

Lucy is our little post-office mouse, and I have a suspicion she knows considerably more about the residents of Honeysuckle Lane than she lets on.

Over time, I hope the letters begin to feel almost like chapters of a story, a little like a family.

A story that doesn't arrive all at once.

It arrives slowly.

One beautiful envelope at a time.

But the paper and paint aren't really the important part.

The important part is the walk to the mailbox.

It's seeing an envelope tucked between the bills and advertisements and realizing—

Oh.

This one is for me.

That is the moment I want to create.

Because I remember what it felt like to need it.

And perhaps there is someone in your life who needs it, too.

Your mother.

Your daughter away at college.

A friend going through a difficult season.

A sister who lives too far away.

Someone who recently lost her husband.

Someone who just became a mother.

Someone whose children just left home.

Someone you love who could use a little reminder, once a month, that she has not been forgotten.

Or perhaps that person is you.

You don't have to be lonely to come to Honeysuckle Lane.

You only have to believe, as I do, that life could use a little more beauty.

A little more kindness.

A little more anticipation.

A little more mail that isn't trying to sell us car insurance.

I cannot go back and send an envelope to that younger version of myself.

Oh, how I wish I could.

I would paint something beautiful for her.

I would tuck a little surprise inside.

And I would write across the envelope in my very best handwriting:

For Me.

Then somewhere in the letter I would tell her:

You won't always feel this way.

There is so much goodness ahead of you.

Keep going.

Maybe Honeysuckle Lane is my way of sending that letter now.

Just to someone else.

And if one of those envelopes finds its way into the hands of a person who needed a little encouragement that day...

well.

That may be the loveliest thing I ever paint.

Welcome to Honeysuckle Lane.

There's always room for one more.

— Sherri