Trigger me to write, why don’t you?
by ggPuppetLady
It started with a cracked brown jug. Under a grey sky, chirping birds, and a homework deadline. Or did it start with the flowers I put in the jug? I guess it’s hard to trace back the precise moment an emotion is created; slowly expanding down neural pathways, triggering related connections, sparking life into old circuits. Whatever the moment, it came into focus on Dad’s old jug, sitting on my timber shelf above the sink. I’d inherited it from his home in Canada, and this was only the second time I’d actually used it:
It can be an insignificant moment, putting flowers into a vase. Some people do it every day, like florists for example. Or nurses in hospitals. Just an ordinary act: trimming the stems, removing an errant leaf, perhaps adding a pinch of sugar to the water.
Or it can be profound. The first bunch of flowers received from a new beau. A souvenir wedding bouquet for the lucky bridesmaid who caught it. A spontaneous gathering of wildflowers by a visiting grandchild. These posies seem more important, more valuable. Worthy of a grander vase perhaps?
My flowers smelt beautiful; Singapore lilies, mixed with various green leaves. They looked perfect in Dad’s old jug, and it felt good to dust it off. Then I thought about how often he’d used it, taking it down from the top shelf behind the door in his long kitchen. I remembered filling it with water, and once, with homemade lemonade that was a bit too tart, but I was trying to cut down on sugar.
I remembered peeling off the bubble wrap that had delivered it to my door in Australia after he died, praying that it wasn’t chipped or broken. I’d double bubbled it for the drive from Adelaide, and had kept it in the car with me and the meowing cat all the way up North to our new home.
Now the jug sits on my table, full of flowers, and I’ve been filled with memories of Dad. I haven’t written this blog for ages- months and months; I’ve been wondering if its time had finished? But this entry feels easy, a nice gentle return to the blogosphere. A reminder that inspiration can come from anything, at any time, and all we have to do is be open and ready for it. Plus, we need a good soundtrack:
It’s good to be back! Now what’s the last thing that jogged your memory about a lost loved one?
Love this post, and welcome back! You’ve captured really nicely how the littlest things can provoke the strongest emotions.
A few months ago, after my mothers stroke my brother and I were clearing out her house. It was a difficult job sorting what she might want to keep from what we could throw out to be able to put the house on the rental market. There was one item that caused us huge dilemmas.
It was an old wooden coffee table, aged and stained by the years but not beyond repair. It was oak and was asymmetric with undulating edges. The top as beautiful as the legs were ugly. It had been witness to our earliest days and bore the scars and lines of experience.
My brother and I took days discussing what to do with it. It was a symbol of our youth, our upbringing and the quirkiness of our mother. When we finally decided to throw it out we cried.
In the light of day such an irrational response to a coffee table
PS please keep writing these posts! Don’t stop!
Thankyou so much for sharing your story! Yes, isn’t it amazing what we attach to inanimate objects? And yet those emotions are so valuable, and so real. Just like our quirky, much loved, much missed parents… I really appreciate your contribution, and your encouragement 🙂