Friday, January 16, 2009

Dishes

As the final strains of this year’s Auld Land Sine pinball around in my head, the old acquaintance that are not forgot happen to be dishes. That’s right, dishes: plates, cups, saucers, soup bowls, the whole panoply of place settings.

In December, two important-in-my-life, dish-characters exited. Both exited in good ways, not with resounding crashes, but did exit, and like any part of your life, things that exit first had to enter, and probably made some impact during their stay.

At my Grandmother’s, she had her house and she had the summerhouse behind it. The summerhouse was no longer used for its named purpose. It was simply a storage space for currently-not-in-use things; I remember there being furniture, framed portraits of forbearers, and dishes in there. Although just storage, it must have been kept clean, because I was allowed to play in there in my prissy little starched dresses. I would sit in its summertime dim, green coolness, in a chair, at a table, in the middle of the room, playing tea party with dishes that I had carried over from the shelves that were built along the walls below the windows. Those dishes were there because they currently were out of the rotation. Others were in the house, in use.

Grandmother had “the dish gene.” Naturally, she had “the good china,” but she also had every-day dishes: several sets. “The dish gene” compelled her to give a home to good and deserving dishes that caught her eye. They followed her home because at some point they had appealed to her like stray puppies call to some folks. They came and went in and out of daily use at her whim: maybe seasonally, maybe just because she hadn’t used them in a while. My uncle would haul a set out to the summerhouse and bring a different set into the house as the mood struck her.  The “dish gene.”

The “dish gene” landed in my make-up too, probably both nature and nurture. In addition to my own dishes, two sets plus some spectacular, must-have, odd pieces, whenever anybody in the family has dishes to move-out they say, “Call Jeanette, she’ll take them.” This trait has gifted me with dishes from my mother, my mother-in-law, my former mother-in-law and miscellany from the generations. And, for those occasions when reinforcements are needed, I have known nifty stores, catalogues and websites where even more can be had.

Enough already; time to divest! I’m getting a little long in the tooth and don’t have the luxury of a summerhouse. Mindful of Gibran’s dictum, “Give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors’,” last December, I bid adieu to two major acquisitions.

In consideration of their rightful place, and with that Southern sense of family, I lovingly packed and sent back to the Cox family my former mother-in-law’s china that she had chosen when she married almost 70 years ago. Satisfied that her grandchildren will give them the home and love that they deserve, I sent them packing.

Then, with the delight that the happily married have when others decide to take the leap, I heard that a cousin was getting married. I decided, since both he and his bride are past the first flush of youth, well-settled and not really needful of any of the usual wedding-type gifts, that a family treasure was the only possible gift. He and I have maternal forbearers in common, so great-grandmother’s crystal sugar jar and lid made the trip to his home in New York to carry on a life of usefulness and symbolism of those who came before, into a third century.

So, although these two old-acquaintances won’t be soon forgot, starting in this new year, they have begun new lives. Now there’s a thought cause you to raise a cup of kindness! Naturally, a cup from “the dish gene” collection.

Broadcast by Jeanette Saddler Taylor on January 16, 2009
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