“If I could turn back time…” Would I spend it any more wisely? And if I did, would I like that person as well as this one. Feeling ambivalent and contemplative about returning to CST. Pondering all the time I’ve wasted this year. As I outline a few ambitious projects for November and December, I recalled this scrap of a poem I wrote so many years ago called:
Loose Change
I wonder at my propensity to spend time like so much loose change feeding the voracious vending machine dispensing time consumed on the run without second thought and little memory
(Originally published in Victoria Magazine, 2008 under a different title)
…I broke another one this morning. Now, I’m down to one. I raise it now to sip hot dark amber from its gilt-edged porcelain mouth. Gently, I set it back in place in its own saucer. I am sometimes tempted to put it up – this well-traveled survivor of family treks across England and the United States – but I can’t.
…I don’t remember when mother acquired the china, nor does she. I recall I in 1955 when Daddy got orders for England and took us with him. We lived at Wadenhoe House, a Jacobean manor house but a castle to me. There the service for six suddenly appeared in our china cabinet one day – cups, saucers, plates and the serving dish.
Aerie Balcony morning pages
…I never saw mother take the china from the cabinet; I could look but not touch. It was and still is so beautiful to me. Made in England, the bone china is white and a pale pink, its scalloped edges carefully painted with roses and posies in 22ct gold.
…In 1958, we moved by plane, train, then car to an Air Force base in a small west Texas town called Pyote. When mother unpacked her carefully wrapped treasures, she found one fractured saucer and a broken cup. I thought, how sad, we never used it, and it broke anyway.
Moving every three years took us to Albuquerque, New Mexico then back to Texas. By the time Daddy retired, the china set was down to three cups, four saucers and plates and the serving dish. Still, Mother displayed it with her fine pieces.
…I always asked to use the china when I stopped by for coffee. Mother hesitated at first, but as time passed, I no longer had to ask. One day she gave me the set, saying, “It should be yours. I was afraid they’d break, so I only ever used them once, and still they broke one by one. I know you’ll use it and not be afraid.”
…I’m not afraid, and I do use my things, and now only one cup and saucer, four plates and the serving dish are left, along with numerous pictures and memories.
…I wondered as a child – and fancy still. Could inanimate objects have feelings? If I put this old cup up on a safe high shelf behind glass doors, would she be lonely sitting there day after day – untouched, unused? Would this old cup miss the warmth of French roast coffee or the pale citrine of green tea? Her full bowl delivers the soft scent of teas and the hard edge of European roast coffees.
Late night tea w Sabrina
…Would she miss my touch or my conversation with cat and plant and page? Would she feel less a cup if I put her up? For a cup is what a cup is, or is she less for becoming an object d’art? Should she be declared too old, too precious, too fragile, and so declared, be relegated to the dusty domain of other admired and unused things, to old to be useful.
…No. Perhaps I’ll be a little more careful. I’ll take a few more pictures to remember her by.
There are already pictures of her on the glass coffee table on the balcony next to the porch swing. I have another on the desk with my old glasses and journal and my favorite gold pen. Another shares space with my first cat, Sabrina, on my all too cluttered desk late at night lit by an old lamp. She, filled with tea and my cat in slumber my only company, as I wrote nightly, racing against the dawn that heralded a new day’s duties that would take me from words I longed to write.
…Yes, in her own way, this gilded cup is a comfort and joy – a guardian of golden memories and a priceless companion.
#perleswalkabout Sleight-of-word. Instead of apologetically saying I only walked 3 miles this morning I’m going to say I walked 5K. Sounds more impressive. Yup, I used to be impressed, too. But I did the math and 5K is a scant 3.1 miles. Once Summer is over, my objective is to get back to my target 5 miles every morning. And that is 8K.
#perlesjournal Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit!!!** For Luck. And it’s suddenly September — Fall for most of us even though the Fall equinox is 21 days away. Twenty-one days. And Mom gone now for just 20 days a little after midnight tonight. Still feels unreal. But time marches inexorably on. All too soon, we’ll turn back the clocks. Thanksgiving in 3 months; Solstice in 4. Looking for new traditions for the holidays, as I expect mom’s house to have new owners by then.
Like my rabbit I’ll be moving forward, but thanks to FB Memories, I’ll get to glance back from time to time and revisit #momsdayout
**NOTE: “Rabbit rabbit rabbit” is a superstition found in Britain and N. America wherein a person says or repeats the word rabbit aloud upon waking on the first day of a month, to ensure good luck.
I wrote this poem 4/4/14 after rereading my 4/4/12 Blog on the letter D.
I find I need reminding from time to time, to get out of my rut and live my Dash. So although the text below is mostly a reprint, the double haiku above is my own.
4/4/2012 perlechampion.com
Too often, we dash between dawn and dusk barely noticing the miracles, large and small, strewn like gems throughout our days.
I read an article in which the writer said ‘live your dash’. What I wondered did that mean. She went on to explain that as she wandered through a cemetery one day, she noticed that beneath each name there were two dates with a small dash between them.
I never thought about that – a lifetime reduced to a birth date and a death date separated by a small dash.
I know people who plod through their days for whom that dash is far too large. I know people who dash through their days and never notice the day’s bounty.
And I know people for whom that dash is far too small to encompass the life they live.
I’m determined to live my dash from dawn to dusk and then some.
I’m recently re-reading Women Who Run With the Wolves.
I’ve always a loved Fairytales. The originals – not the sanitized and disneyfied ones. They teach us, if we pay attention, about life.
Author, Jungian analyst, storyteller, and true cantadore, Clarissa Pinkola Estes, explores the female psyche in this book.
I believe that all the characters are aspects of ourselves. We are all of them: the miller’s daughter, the miller, the king, the faithful servant, the baby, and Rumpelstiltskin.
#perlesaerie Still reading Obama’s Promised Land. But for desert, cookbooks. I frequently check out cookbooks I hear about. My library run yesterday had this one on hold for me. Jamie Oliver’s “7 Ways” is wonderful and I may have to buy my own copy.
So perfect when you get bored making the same recipes over and over again. He takes favorite vegetables, eggs, mushrooms, meat, fish and fowl and gives 7 different recipes for each. So simple and quick, I wonder I never thought of these variations myself.
Who do you write for? Yourself or others? I only know I must write.
Virginia Woolf said, “Never mind the misses and the stumbles…” “The habit of writing for my eyes only is good practice, it loosens the ligaments.”
My morning pages do just that. Unadorned. For my eyes only. Throughout my life, my journal is my shrink, my confidant, my sounding board for rough drafts for poems, stray thoughts and published works.
#perlesaerie Although I bought it the day after it hit the store, I just opened Obama’s Promised Land last night thinking I’ll read a chapter or 2 every evening. Or so I thought. Not. I couldn’t put it down. I had to force myself to turn off the light at 2am and go to sleep. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Today, I made my coffee and went back to bed to read n sip. I’ve ignored chores all day and a holiday open house this evening to just curl up in my favorite corner of the couch and keep reading. Made a pizza n beer run to the corner store, so I didn’t have to cook. I just kept reading.
I actually got a few texts from concerned friends asking why I was not on social media or our n about much today.
I’m fine. But with a good book, I’ve been known to dive head first down the rabbit hole. I really need an exercise bike so I can read and peddle. Riding the couch isn’t going to help me shed this Covid 30.
Wow. Forgot it was pecan season. Instead of walking circles at the Park, I took off down 10th court and in to 10th Avenue. For some reasons these folks never bother with the pecans falling from their trees. Actually seen them raked into the piles of leafs to be bagged. So no guilt this morning as I filled both my pockets to overflowing.
Perle Champion 