Grandma

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Grandma

Grandma

The day, thick and heavy with grey drizzle irritates like a soaked wool blanket. My restless children cling to my sides, whiny and needy from being inside all day. I shiver – trying to shake off the damp creeping from under the gap in my patio door. I shake – trying to free myself from the children. My task of the week – toilet training my 2-year-old – was a failure, cleaning up messes off the floor, dragging rugs out to the porch to be hosed off, and washing his hands after playing in his own pee. A true holiday

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Red-Stemmed Goblets

Red-Stemmed Goblets

“I saw those red stemmed goblets one day when I came into work at Hemphill Wells and I just had a fit over them!” (“Had a fit,” is Southern Belle slang for “I absolutely adored them, Dahling!”) My Belgian living room is cast in a soft glow from stained glass lamps. Frank Sinatra croons from our Pandora radio. With my phone tucked into my ear, I lean forward and grasp a heavy red goblet, swirl the French wine, and take a sip. I continue to jot down notes. “Did you ever actually, use the glasses, Grandma?” I cock my head

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Baker’s Rack

Baker’s Rack

You find out you’re moving to Europe – the dreams of touring famous museums, sipping wine along canals, stepping through streets lined by ancient architecture or (insert postcard perfect dream here) – are quickly pushed aside (at least after a few days of the approval) and the front-runner of your mind becomes. . . the mountain of administrational tasks before you. FBI background checks, medical exams, reissued birth certificates (as if anything had changed since the original documents were issued?) – I could go on, but I won’t in order to prevent an anxiety attack, except to say that the

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Crystal

Crystal

Thin and fragile, etched in white with a pattern of tiny edges running up and down the stem of the glass, I hold my Grandmother’s crystal in my hands. “They’re absolutely beautiful,” I tell my Grandma, “What did you say the pattern was?” “It was called Heather, by Fostoria,” she drawls into the phone, her West Texas accent is thick. “Fostoria,” I repeat, the word like air on my tongue. “Uh, huh, that’s right. I picked out the pattern – and my Mother or family would give me a plate or a champagne glass for Christmas or Mother’s Day. All

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Cake Dome

Cake Dome

Tulips, windmills, bicycles, and delft blue pottery – these are the icons of the Netherlands. My (then future husband) and I visited the Netherlands as a young couple over a decade ago. He was auditing a client in Rotterdam and I tagged along for the trip. As we kissed goodbye in the morning, I set-off like the fearless tourist I was. I found my way to the Rotterdam station and wandered with hesitation to a vendor. I picked out a freshly baked croissant and ordered a coffee so strong it made my eyes water. Armed with a few tourist books

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Handpainted China

Handpainted China

My grandma’s china cabinet stood in the corner of her tiny dining room my whole childhood. I think it’s a good guess that it might have been the only piece of furniture in her home that never moved. It contained white china plates with gold rims I always coveted and pretty tea cups with green background and pink roses. It wasn’t until years later I realized that all the pieces actually matched – the scalloped gold rims on the teacups matched the rimmed white china plates and teapot – my grandma had painted them, a tiny ‘Willaphene’ signed on a

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