Tea Time

As a rule, I don’t like clutter. I have no problem giving away, recycling, or simply throwing out things I no longer need.

Yet, I hold on to some things that I simply can’t part with.

I have on my kitchen counter a periwinkle blue tea pot. It is large, enough for serving a group of friends around my table. Despite its age, there are no chips or cracks in it, only the stained interior of a well-loved vessel of comfort and healing. Tea has medicinal qualities in my house, as it did in my mother’s and my grand-mother’s.

The thing is, this tea pot did not even come to me through my own family. It was given to my mother by her good friend, who inherited it from her mother. We used to call the original owner Grandma Jones, even though she was not related to us in any way. She was our neighbour’s mother, and looked after us whenever my parents were not home. Grandma Jones passed away when I was in my teens, yet her tea pot lives on in my kitchen.

Rereading this paragraph, I find many questions I will never be able to answer. All the players in this story are long gone, so I will never know why my mother’s friend gave my mother her mother’s tea pot. Why did my mother give it to me? Why is any of this meaningful enough to make me keep the teapot?

I do remember bits of comments that could, conceivably, be cobbled together into an explanation. Grandma Jones had spent time with her daughter visiting for weeks at a time on a regular basis. When she was there, her daughter, my mother’s friend, would occasionally escape to our kitchen for a break…a tea break. Grandma Jones was apparently a difficult person: strong willed, opinionated, and argumentative. She was also kind, and generous with her time. She stayed with us so our parents could go out, and cooked and baked for everyone. When she stayed with us, we felt safe and cared for. She just like to do everything her own way, as do most people who have managed their own lives for decades.

My mother reminded me regularly when Grandma Jones was around that her birthday was the day before mine. Was there a message there? You be the judge.

So, what is the story behind the teapot on my kitchen counter. Did Joyce, my mother’s friend, give it away because she did not want a reminder of her mother in her house? Did my mother give it to me because she saw a connection between the formidable elder and her challenging young daughter?

Or, did Joyce give my mother the teapot because she wanted my mother to have a keepsake from a woman she had respected and trusted. Perhaps my mother gave it to me because she wanted to give me something that had meant something to her, when she packed away the house to move into an apartment.

I, too, believe in the medicinal power of a good cup of tea. I, too, welcome friends around my table to share a cup, share a story, be it joy or sorrow. Tea is the bridge that joins us, sharing every day joys and challenges, feeding hopes and dreams, soothing regrets and disappointments.

When I make a pot of tea, I sometimes wonder about the bonds that join us, in this realm.

Whatever they are, what we keep becomes the thread and weft of our own legacy.