Leaving a mark

Yesterday Tetsu and I went out to lunch at a friend's Thai restaurant. I love Thai curry and the exotic flavors and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. For dessert the chef served some of his homemade melon sherbet and it came adorned with this beautiful display of carved melon and carrots! He said he does fruit and vegetable carving as a hobby and it takes him about an hour to carve one melon. His carving will last for three days before it gets made into sherbet and he carves another one. He said he had carved 5 this week for a party the day before.

Different hobbies for different people. It made me wonder if I'd be willing to put in 5 hours on patchwork or quilting if I knew that in three days it was going to be made into pillow stuffing or something. Probably not. I like the idea of my quilts lasting for a few years or a generation and that maybe someone down the line is going to say,

"Wow, look at all the work that went into this."

or

"Interesting color combinations this person used."

or even

"I bet I can do better than that... Maybe I'll give it a try!"

Which probably means I ought to be putting more labels on things. But then again I don't really care to be remembered by name as much as just leaving a mark... Does that make sense?

Well, the melon sherbet is remembered in my tummy (yum!) and the chef's melon is leaving its mark on my blog (whether he knows it or not). The chef offered to teach me vegetable carving if I'd care to learn but I think I'll stick with patchwork.