My home is most certainly not a show house. I like everything to be clean but tidy has evaded my efforts - okay my ability to concentrate on tidying. As a child I lived in fear that whilst at church with my Dad and siblings my mother would feel the need to check my cupboards. On more than one occasion I returned home to find myself whisked away by my Mom who would swing open my bedroom door as if about to reveal a great new paleontology discovery!
“Look!” She would instruct me.
Yip, I would think, there lies my entire wardrobe and numerous other possessions.
“One day all this,” pause for dramatic effect (and to find an appropriate word), “this…” a hand signal to direct my attention as if somehow I could possibly have not seen the pile that covered the floor in front of us. “You messiness will …”
“Kill you? Hurt you?” I generously offered my suggestions.
Closing her eyes, brilliant blue and an alarming darker shade when angry, she shuddered.
“T.I.D.Y. IT! TODAY!”
The tone was what I had to focus on not the low volume although that was also somewhat alarming.
Within half an hour things would be arranged according to my low, very low, standards. By the time I was 12 we had come to an understanding. A fortnightly inspection kept her blood pressure under the red zone and I would try not to kill her with falling clothes, books and more books.
Of course a wall height bookcase would have helped but I never found the courage to suggest it.
So the years passed. I got married, to a man who prefers tidiness, had children and moved house so many times that I stopped counting at eight. Of course each move offered the opportunity to do a thorough discarding of bits and bobs. To a degree it was a success. The main issue for me is that special items have a unique history and story to tell. You may see a teapot that is pretty but nothing about is unusual. Yet it has a 47 year old story behind to remind me of a new beginning in my life.
Nothing special. It holds about six cups of tea. It has survived children, being shipped from Africa to the USA. Numerous domestic moves and sits on our sideboard only used a few times a year. Of no real monetary value.
The Simple Story:
From early on in our dating Best Beloved and I would meet at the varsity cafe for afternoon tea almost every day. We would buy tea and peanuts. Then sit in a booth together. It was a simple date which gradually turned into a ritual. Four decades later we have afternoon tea together almost every day.
After moving into a tiny flat just off campus we decided to spend a small gift of 15R that David’s grandmother had given us. Soon after moving in we decided the best thing we could buy was a tea set. On a warm late summer day Best Beloved and I decided that the 15R his grandmother had given us as a gift should be spent on a tea set. Not a common purchase for most people in their early twenties just starting out together. I’m not sure we even really had space for it.
So off we went to OK Bazaars and looked for a tea set. Nothing fancy. Six cups, saucers, milk jug and sugar bowl and tea pot. We walked home pleased with our purchase feeling almost like real adults.
Washed and dried our tea set was used that first day. Our ritual tea time was made more special because of the gift. Four decades later we have afternoon tea together almost every day. No longer using our teapot (the only piece of the set to have survived) but still following our youthful selves in sharing our news as we sip our tea.
On a cluttered sideboard among other treasures stands our teapot. If we ever need to remember when we began to enjoy a cuppa together the teapot is our key.
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