I'm running a writing workshop on Friday for the kids I tutor.
I realized that I'm doing it for me when one of the props I felt I must bring was my grandma's coffee cup. Yes, I will be the one writing about that cup. No one else will choose it. No one else would pick it out of a lineup of good candidates. What could you possibly say about an old coffee cup?
These kids were raised using mugs not cups, big mugs that could host dirt and a hearty petunia, stainless steel skinny mugs designed to slip into their car's cup holder, heavy mugs with photos of T-ball players who have since grown up, awkward and colorful mugs with swirly patterns and the word 'peace' painted on each side, mugs with snarky comments printed on them that have long since stopped making them laugh. These kids might not even recognize a low-rise porcelain cup, one that contained barely a measured cup, with a delicate white handle that you have to pinch between your thumb and forefinger to use.
Those kids don't remember that pink and white porcelain cup set on a saucer for meals of homegrown beans, tomatoes, corn, watermelon, and blackberry cobbler. Those kids won't know that the cup with an unstained twin means a moment or two, unrushed, at the dining table for a heart-to-heart in between planting, weeding, picking, snipping, snapping, and canning homegrown fruits and vegetables. A cup of tea and a salad lunch with Grandma was an event, not fancy, but a lesson in feeding yourself the freshest food that mattered to your body. It could begin with laughter and end with tears, the good kind, the kind of tears that melted your heart, made you feel pressed into the red and white softness of Grandma's favorite cotton dress.
That cup was the first washed and the first to be set back on the table with its saucer, always ready for the next moment when it was needed. That cup was witness to Grandma's long life, almost the beginning and almost to the end. I'm not exactly sure when Grandpa gave Grandma her good set of dishes, the ones with a farm scene in the center and acorns around the edges, but she used it every day that I was there. I use them now. I like to think that Grandma wouldn't mind that I use one of the tiny bowls to feed the kitten, or that I brought up the chipped dessert plate to use first to see if it would tolerate the dishwasher or go pale and craze in its heat. I haven't chipped or broken one yet, thankfully.
When I pack for the writing workshop, I'll bring a birdhouse that was never offered to the birds, a dried starfish, a Ball jar, a sand dollar, a pine cone, Gumby, and a bowl of fruit. But I know, when I pack up that cup and saucer to go to the workshop, it is not for my students to ponder. It will be for me. With that porcelain cup, I'll remember a worn red and white dress that smelled of Jergen's lotion, a white apron, a vegetable garden with a single row of sunflowers and dahlias, a watermelon so ripe it cracks open when it's tapped, a large tin tub, a toilet that rocked a little when you sat on it, a kitchen that smelled of coffee, bacon, and homemade bread, a house with a shaded front porch, a porch with a swing that creaked, a wooden screen door that screeched when it was opened and slapped shut again, flyswatters, a long ash hanging from Grandpa's cigarette, a short front lawn so that Uncle Buddy could stop in his car on the wrong side of the road without getting out, hang his tanned left arm out of the driver's-side window, shade his bright blue eyes, and talk without any other cars honking him away. I can remember the horses that stood in the field across the road, the way they swished their tails and reached for the taller, tender grass across the barbed wire fence. I can remember a whole lifetime ago, to a time that I was the same age as these kids I pretend to teach.
So what? So what if I'm running a workshop intended solely for me?
Thank you for listening, jb
I realized that I'm doing it for me when one of the props I felt I must bring was my grandma's coffee cup. Yes, I will be the one writing about that cup. No one else will choose it. No one else would pick it out of a lineup of good candidates. What could you possibly say about an old coffee cup?
These kids were raised using mugs not cups, big mugs that could host dirt and a hearty petunia, stainless steel skinny mugs designed to slip into their car's cup holder, heavy mugs with photos of T-ball players who have since grown up, awkward and colorful mugs with swirly patterns and the word 'peace' painted on each side, mugs with snarky comments printed on them that have long since stopped making them laugh. These kids might not even recognize a low-rise porcelain cup, one that contained barely a measured cup, with a delicate white handle that you have to pinch between your thumb and forefinger to use.
Those kids don't remember that pink and white porcelain cup set on a saucer for meals of homegrown beans, tomatoes, corn, watermelon, and blackberry cobbler. Those kids won't know that the cup with an unstained twin means a moment or two, unrushed, at the dining table for a heart-to-heart in between planting, weeding, picking, snipping, snapping, and canning homegrown fruits and vegetables. A cup of tea and a salad lunch with Grandma was an event, not fancy, but a lesson in feeding yourself the freshest food that mattered to your body. It could begin with laughter and end with tears, the good kind, the kind of tears that melted your heart, made you feel pressed into the red and white softness of Grandma's favorite cotton dress.
That cup was the first washed and the first to be set back on the table with its saucer, always ready for the next moment when it was needed. That cup was witness to Grandma's long life, almost the beginning and almost to the end. I'm not exactly sure when Grandpa gave Grandma her good set of dishes, the ones with a farm scene in the center and acorns around the edges, but she used it every day that I was there. I use them now. I like to think that Grandma wouldn't mind that I use one of the tiny bowls to feed the kitten, or that I brought up the chipped dessert plate to use first to see if it would tolerate the dishwasher or go pale and craze in its heat. I haven't chipped or broken one yet, thankfully.
When I pack for the writing workshop, I'll bring a birdhouse that was never offered to the birds, a dried starfish, a Ball jar, a sand dollar, a pine cone, Gumby, and a bowl of fruit. But I know, when I pack up that cup and saucer to go to the workshop, it is not for my students to ponder. It will be for me. With that porcelain cup, I'll remember a worn red and white dress that smelled of Jergen's lotion, a white apron, a vegetable garden with a single row of sunflowers and dahlias, a watermelon so ripe it cracks open when it's tapped, a large tin tub, a toilet that rocked a little when you sat on it, a kitchen that smelled of coffee, bacon, and homemade bread, a house with a shaded front porch, a porch with a swing that creaked, a wooden screen door that screeched when it was opened and slapped shut again, flyswatters, a long ash hanging from Grandpa's cigarette, a short front lawn so that Uncle Buddy could stop in his car on the wrong side of the road without getting out, hang his tanned left arm out of the driver's-side window, shade his bright blue eyes, and talk without any other cars honking him away. I can remember the horses that stood in the field across the road, the way they swished their tails and reached for the taller, tender grass across the barbed wire fence. I can remember a whole lifetime ago, to a time that I was the same age as these kids I pretend to teach.
So what? So what if I'm running a workshop intended solely for me?
Thank you for listening, jb
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