I just put the Lladro in the china cabinet.
All the lily white angels are in place on the top shelf, chorusing china cheek to china cheek. Sound the timbrel and lyre.
Below, is the shepherdess with her companionable sheep, the knitting girl who looks so much like my mom did back in 1926, the boy scattering imaginary seed for his delicate duck, the girl flat on her belly with a book, who they once said reminded them of me.
Then comes the fisherwoman, her solid thighs spread wide beneath her expansive skirts, a walleye in one hand, thin blade in the other, and the basket of fish, gills flaring, at her feet. Her man in shades of blue and gray, hunched from a day’s labor at sea, sitting by her side.
That’s the end of the Lladro
Below that, a plate with a pedigree. Another girl reading, orange and green and possibly purchased from the five and ten by my mother in 1923. She also holds a book. She always reads the same fairy tale: “ittle Red Riding Hood.” (The “L” worn away, decades ago.) Beside her, somewhat incongruously, a jade piece. A little wooden salt and pepper set–tiny blue barrel, tiny red, set on a rickety wagon and pulled by two tiny, rickety horses (my dad’s first gift to his mother, when he was five years old). And the Swiss bell we all rang, but especially my mother, when we were sick in bed and needed something. Saltines, maybe. Or ice cubes. A cup of water. A glass of prune juice.
No, not the prune juice. No one ever rang for that. It was simply administered.
Finally, at the bottom, the Viking’s boat. The tiny Viking on his stone, with his spear that pricks my finger every time. And slender Don Quixote, carved from wood.
Done. The china cabinet, empty for several weeks now, is filled. Only the light bulbs need to be changed.
And the piano, big and black, with a story we need to understand, sits on the other side of the room, its mouth wide open and empty because upon arrival, we saw how the keys were cracked and bowed and needed to be replaced.
A mute instrument is like a bird without wings.
But after Thanksgiving, we’ll get the keys backed, and the hammers will be lubricated in some mysterious way, so that the action is a little more nuanced, for we learned this too: Steinway dipped their hammers in wax once upon a time; they thought they were doing everybody a favor, but all that really happened was that the wax leached into the wood and oxidized on the brass pins. What is it called? Verdi gris? That process that turns things green. That. Our friendly piano technician rooted out a hammer like a bad tooth, and held it upside down, tapped it, and it gave a pathetic, single swing. “It’s supposed to go back and forth nice and easy like a pendulum six times,” the technician said, smiling ruefully.
We’ll have to replace everything some day, to the tune of five thousand dollars. For now, we’ll just try to get by.
Get by.
That’s what it feels like the last four months have been. After I washed all those window, the same day? I broke my toe. Then time moved fast, fast, fast, while Greg did amazing photography, and the kids started school, and I taught writing classes, and also wrote the online museum shop for CAFAM—the Craft and Folk Art Museum in LA.
Good. Getting by.
Getting here now, which is when, last night, my niece Megan wrote and said: “I’ve been reading your blog, and I really like it.” And I thought: Oh! My blog!
Oh, dear. I’ve forgotten what the categories mean. “At Table.” “Good Talk.” “Growing Season.” “How We Love Now.” What does this fall under? We need to get to know each other again, my categories and me. What shall I categorize this little ditty as? How about: “How We Love Now.” Yes, that. This is how we love today: putting china things in place. Putting Borax on the stains on the couches. Scrolling through Pandora, finding music I’ve not listened to in forever, songs to break my heart and make me sing. Standing on the brink of the holiday season, giving thanks that we are here now, loving now, trying to write again.
