“Humans are inquisitive. That is a function of their humanity. The beings that built this universe did so because it was unthinkable that they should not. Creation is not what gods do, it is something that they are.”
“‘We built the universe didn’t we,’ she said. ‘Not us precisely, but the thing in us that makes us what we are. The thing that dreams while the rest of us are asleep.’”
My mother always had 2 sets of dishes as I grew up. The everyday dishes, that got changed every decade or so, and the Good China, which she kept from the start of her marriage until sometime around her 30th anniversary.
I’m not sure what inspired the change. I think it had some to do with a change in her taste between 22 and 50-ish. And some to do with building a new house and moving to a new place.
So, you see, I grew up in a house where HAVING “the good stuff” was expected. It didn’t occur to me that I didn’t HAVE to have dishes that only got used when I had company.
When I married my son’s father, this mother encouraged me to choose Good China, Sterling, Crystal and Everyday dishes and stainless.
I had decided on a sterling pattern when I worked at The Gold Exchange in Florence, SC polishing the stuff that people brought in to be melted down. (The owner figured out that buying by weight and selling it used was a good money maker.) I had gotten to handle a LOT of sterling, and to see how it aged, what changes a little tarnish made to the pattern.
But the other stuff was harder. I actually traded in the little bit of China I received for more pieces of the Everyday. I had a everything I could possibly use in the Everyday pattern.
And time passed.
And I found that *I* wanted a particular China pattern. And fell in love with a particular Crystal pattern.
When I moved away from my son’s father, I kept the Good Stuff and left him the everyday. And it was all I had until I married Wild Child’s stepfather.
And he and I, with our one child each, picked an everyday set for our new household. He wanted to have stainless instead of eating with sterling, so we got that, too. It was one of the symbols of our one house together. I handed it off to him when I packed his belongings up.
And continued to eat off my china with sterling.
I found a Limoges platter that I thought was lovely at an antique store. It had little roses all around the outside and a bouquet in the middle with an edge of gold. They wanted $175 and I had to pass. (Here is the pattern, but not the actual platter.)
About a year later, I saw a slightly more worn version of the same platter at Replacements in the showroom. For $25. Guess what I bought.
It goes beautifully with my china.
I have 2 identically shaped but different color butter plates in carnival glass. One is blue and one is green. I like the color of the blue best but the green works better with the various pieces that I use with the china a la Victoria. 🙂
A friend gave me some pieces of Franciscan’s Desert Rose, which had been my grandmother’s everyday pattern, too. My china is Tirschenreuth’ Baroness White. My sterling is Gorham’s Strasbourg. My crystal is Waterford’s Maeve.
We spotted them when I took my son to visit his father.
Jay works in Florence, lives in Charleston. He sometimes meets me at either Dillon, SC (home of South of the Border) or Laurinburg, NC (home of not a whole lot). I travel down Hwy 15/501 to where 501 joins I-95 at Dillon. It is a decent compromise and beats trying to get around Raleigh in the evening when traffic tends to be obnoxious. And I like the country drive.
There is a cemetery on the east side of 501 going through Laurinburg. As we went through to the meeting place with Jay, I saw them, ghostly on the side of the road. On the way back up, I paused and drove through the cemetery. It was on my side of the road and we weren’t trying to keep to any timetable at that point. There were MANY crosses on various graves spotted all over the place.
To my GREAT annoyance, I did not have my camera with me.
When I went back through, I took my camera. And they were MUCH brighter than last time. But I was on a schedule, so I waited to take the picture when I had Christopher with me, so he could enjoy the scenery with me.
BUT when I got there at 4 AM, they had faded.
Apparently, the little black boxes on the back of them are little solar panels.
The first time I had seen them had been a cloudy day and the second time had been sunny. The ones close to the road, with the streetlights, were still glowing, however.
So, when I went back through Laurinburg the next time I took pictures of the glow-in-the-dark crosses.
Some of them have Madonna and Child medallions. Some are plain white crosses. I suspect that you can tell Protestants form Catholics that way.
I stopped to take daylight pictures on my way back. It got a little odder and a little more poignant.
(from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer):
Easter Day is always the Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox on March 21. This full moon may happen on any date between March 21 and April 18 inclusive. If the full moon falls on Sunday, Easter Day is the Sunday following. But Easter Day cannot be earlier than March 22 or later than April 25.
I have never understood why it didn’t just happen on the Sunday after Passover.
Addendum: Easter Day this year is the earliest it has been since 1913 and will not fall as early for another 220 years.
Near the end of A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle, Mrs Whatsit tries to explain Free Will to Calvin and Meg.
She says (and I am editing for clarity) “In your language you have a form of poetry called a sonnet…It is a very strict form of poetry…There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That’s a very strict rhythm or metre…And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet…But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants…”
“You’re given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself.”
I don’t know that I agree that an entire Life is a Sonnet, but I do find many components of my life are sonnet-like.
Tango is one bit. There are certain ways to do the steps, but you can dance any pattern you like. There is something of a sonnet in my labyrinth walking habit.
There are other things, but they aren’t coming to mind right now.
I am the Audience 