“One of these days this bowl is going to break apart,” my husband said while placing it on the counter. “I can feel it shifting. One day, the bowl will just let go.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “And when it breaks I will glue it back together and keep on using it. That is your mother’s bowl. I took it from the house when we purged her kitchen. The bowl is important to me.”
Am I the only person who refuses to let go of broken things? I use chipped blue willow dishes whose patterns don’t even match. I can’t bear to part with them because I worked so hard to acquire them during my teenage years, which were filled with dreams of Happily Ever After and the assemblage of items for my hope chest.
Mother insisted I begin searching for Hope Chest items at age seventeen. I believe it is because the A&P grocery store was running a five-cent sale on a turkey platter that week, which was available in one of two china patterns. Mother never was one to pass up a sale. The Hope Chest was a symbol of optimism filled with items such as a handmade quilt (which the young lady, of course, had stitched herself). Were the young lady without ability, a quilt was gifted from the ladies of the church. Regardless, no Appalachian Hope Chest was complete without at least one handmade quilt, a set of bed linens, monogramed bath towels, a couple of picture frames, a recipe book, and a set of china. Remember when young ladies were prepared for marriage with these items, versus asking for exorbitant wedding gifts? Even though I was a teenager in the 80s and the Hope Chest had fallen out of favor 30 years earlier, some ideas linger in the mountains of Appalachia, especially when it comes to a young lady being prepared to set up a home.
I may not be a young lady anymore, but I do like being prepared. None of you should be surprised to learn dinner is served on my blue willow plates, and the china set acquired in the 80s is still in the cabinet at my parent’s home. I did use a few china pieces for Thanksgiving this year, and I really should carry a few plates home.
Why in the world would I have ever needed a table setting for twelve?
In my kitchen cabinet, teacups are a mishmash of inconsistency, a variety of vessels I have been gifted during book-tour travels, except for a set of matching porcelain cups I am particularly fond of using during the winter. The set has matching lids which keeps my tea hot. Of course, I’d owned them for less than a month before I knocked the lid off and nicked the edge.
Most people would throw it out. Right?
I can’t.
Perhaps I hold onto things others would toss because of the yellow vase which held a place of prominence at my grandmother, Lexie Winchester’s, kitchen table. Like my mother-in-law’s bowl which will soon slip apart, the vase had a prominent break running from the edge of the opening down toward the handle. Granny had used super glue, or the equivalent, to reconnect that which was broken, along with reconnecting a secondary, smaller break. Each Sunday during the summer, this cheery vase held flowers cut from her yard. Iris were her favorites. The splash of purple really made the yellow vase pop.
I am not certain if Granny instructed my aunt, Lisa, to give me the vase when she checked herself into the nursing home. I only know that if you ask me about my prize possessions, the cracked vase ranks high on the list. I don’t care about money, keep all of it. Give me things that remind me of people who mattered in my life. If my house were to ever catch fire, I am grabbing Granny’s patched vessel and my photographs without turning back.
Looking at the vase, the handles appear to mimic hands on hips, an attitude the vase has taken; a statement if you will. The world tried to break me, but I’m still here. I have scars but I am still functional. I am not as beautiful as I once was, but someone loves me.
Could there be anything more symbolic than being glued back together and placed on the table to live another day? I don’t think so. After the health challenges I had last year, I relate to the vase. I resemble the vase with a ragged super-glued-scar.
What lessons could this vase teach me? What stories can she tell?
A gift from my friend, Rachel, a tiny vase with mushrooms, held my jewelry as I worked up a loaf of bread. I had looked at this pottery every single day since receiving it. Every single day I said a prayer of thanksgiving for friendships that last beyond distance and time; friendships that grow stronger.
Unbreakable.
Simply put, I loved this piece of pottery. My favorite piece.
There was no mistaking the sound. The shattering, the breaking against the unforgiving floor. I knew it could happen; knew it just as I know my own faults. A towel had covered it, and as I pulled on the towel it had caught the vase and flung it to the floor.
I had broken my treasure.
I am not the kind of person who accepts gifts and then hides them under a bushel basket, no! I use the gifts I receive. I display them prominently. I give thanks for them, and for my friends. But now, I had broken my little mushroom vessel. My heart was shattered like the pieces scattered on the floor.
How could I had been so careless? So rushed? “Renea,” I cried. “Look what you’ve done!”
The break wasn’t clean. Not like the yellow vase Granny had expertly glued back together. I knelt on the floor and carefully picked up the pieces, weeping uncontrollably. Years earlier, Rachel had seen this pottery, thought of me, and sent it as a surprise.
For a moment I thought about telling her, but I was too upset. She would understand. She too had broken something important, something she had poured her emotions into. Rachel would understand. In her infinite wisdom, she would say that she believed items should be used; to place something on the shelf is a disservice not only to the item, but to the person we love and respect.
Still, I have held silent on the breaking, until now.
Begging my daughter’s assistance, I flipped the broken pieces until they fell into place, with the exception of one piece that would not return to right. Finally, I gave up and placed that tiny part inside the pot. Something to rattle about, loose and untethered. A reminder to be more careful.
Perhaps when we break sentimental things we feel as if we are losing our people, our childhood, our memories. Perhaps that is why we keep a tube of super glue at the ready. Looking at the scars on these repaired things remind me of how flawed I truly am.
So, I refuse to throw away the broken things in my life. Broken things can be repaired. Broken things matter.
During a time when we quickly cast aside that which is imperfect, I embrace all the brokenness.