Loose Leaf Notes

My husband Joe and I were lounging in the yard by a patch of creeping periwinkle flowers.  We were enjoying a late breakfast in the unseasonably warm spring morning when the mailman drove up and hand-delivered a package.  For a moment I had forgotten what I ordered from the new Sears Catalog, Amazon.com.  I remembered as I tore open the box like a kid with a present at a birthday party.   “It must be my new stainless steel steamer pot,” I said, laughing to myself at how easily I went from loving toys to house wares.

I was tired of those collapsible steamers that break so easily.   I couldn’t understand why all the pots I found in the stores where clumsy big things with three parts and a cover.   Just a simple pot, a sturdy steamer and a cover was all I wanted.  What I got when I opened the box was all that and more.  The new pot was beautiful.

Sitting in the green grass like a shiny, royal cauldron, it took on a look of magic, and like Goldilocks, I announced, “I love it!  It’s not too big and not too little. It’s made just right, not too heavy or too light.”   It was a good deal too at $29 and no shipping charge.  I felt rich thinking about all the life-giving garden greens it would steam.

Right away, I was drawn to the scene projected on its cover, a tree reaching up to the blue sky with clouds.  It was like a fairytale entryway into a world that no one talks about, one I’ve yearned for since childhood.

The concept of God as explained by the church has always been hard for me to logically understand.   But I understand the glinting hints of mystery, the wonder of the natural world and what I refer to as the divine.  Looking into the pot made me wonder how far the underground tree roots spread out, do the heavens ever stop and what else is unseen but real.

Part oracle, part fun house mirror.    It was a toy after all, I thought as I played with my reflection in the shiny cover.  It became the subject of a photo shoot as parts of my body appeared and disappeared, expanded and contracted and morphed as I  moved.

Later, inside the house, I tested the pot out, closely watching the reflection of rising steam roll like a wizard’s smoke.  I kept a vigil for a couple of days every time I cooked, afraid that my tendency for burning pots would mar the perfection of this one.

Eventually the bears came home, meaning that I left the kitchen while vegetables were steaming and the water ran out of the pot.  Reality set in, and so did the scrubbing, and the forgetting of magic and play – at least until the next reminder finds its way back into my life.