A few days ago during pre-class chat in Zoom yoga, one of our Kula mentioned that she really liked my coffee cup. I thanked her, and noting which cup it was, told her it had been a gift from a sweet friend.
“It’s the only one like it. I don’t have a matched set.” I told her. “All my coffee cups are different; either a gift or maybe a souvenir from a vacation.”
“Same, here.” she said. “All my coffee cups are memories.”
All my coffee cups are memories. I love that so much.
It got me thinking, though, how I have become this person for whom matching coffee cups, matching anything for that matter, do not matter.
There was a period in my thirties, when I adopted the role of a person who did care about those things. I had matching coffee cups and I have them displayed on a little stand on the countertop. In fact, all the dishes in the cabinets were of the same pattern.
During that time, the “rule of three” in decorating, was all the rage and I made sure that there were three candlesticks on the mantle, three framed pictures of pansies on the wall, and so on. I had a formal living room, for goodness sake. There was also the rule that a room must contain something black to give a person a place to rest their eyes. I have no idea whether these rules were just a mid-late 1990s thing, or are still hard and fast rules today. I don’t know because I don’t really care.
Until last year, my handbag rarely matched my shoes. If it did, it was pure coincidence. Today, I use no purse at all. I carry just a cell phone case / wallet combo – so everything I own must have pockets. I have one pair of dress shoes; a cute pair of black and white plaid pumps that I’m hanging onto just in case I have occasion to wear my one remaining little black dress somewhere.
The necklace I wear daily is made of bronze and was very inexpensive. I wear it because it means something to me. The earrings that have been in my ears since September 2022 are sterling silver James Avery, a wedding gift from my daughter. It was once taboo to mix your jewelry metals, is that still the case?
Looking out at my rose garden from my office window, I can see peonies interspersed throughout, along with the tall grass and several species of wildflowers. There are twenty or so roses of various types and colors that could use some love from my pruning shears to remove the rosehips. I designed the space like an English garden whose gardener has long since passed away. But some of those roses were gifts. One from close friends after my mother died. Another from dear co-workers upon my retirement. Another grew from a clipping of my mother’s roses I propagated from the beautiful bushes that grew in front of her home.
My wildflower and vegetable gardens are places of chaos and strong growth, but very little manicure. It is kind of the way I keep my hair, I get a trim about every six months whether I need it or not. Last year’s borage has re-emerged in the middle of this year’s squash and I’m not going to do a thing about it until harvest.
Daddy’s cuckoo clock hangs above my bookshelf. On the the top of that book shelf is a book stand my little sister gave me for Christmas a few years ago which holds Mom’s Bible. Next to the book stand is a picture of 5 year old me on a horse with Daddy, a bowl of marbles that belonged to my grandfather and an old McCoy lamp that once sat on my grandparents’ television. Gosh, remember when the top of the television was a place to put things? The top of my bookshelf looks like a jumbled mess of forgotten items, but it is my memories.
I tried to create some cohesion on my front porch, but only managed get three sets of two chairs each that match. There two wicker chairs at the patio table, two antique aluminum chairs painted bright blue, and two large wooden rocking chairs.
As I sit out here and take in the morning breeze looking out over a partially mowed expanse, I rest my coffee cup on one of three plant stands whose only similarity to each other is that they were once my mother’s, they are all made of wrought iron, and a good Oklahoma wind will send them flying off the porch.
I think you can tell a lot about a person by looking at their coffee cups. Mine has me pegged 100%.
