The Tea Set

“I could do worse than become my own grandma, or anyone of the strong women who raised us. Our strengths emerged from theirs; we build on their heritage and transform their resilience and competence into our own.”

— Regina Barreca

On an aged built-in shelf, among glass plates, gilded cutlery, and ornate serving dishes, sits a nearly 150-year old tea set. The story of how I came to be in possession of such a treasure is one of admiration and respect, grief and acceptance, joy and Love. It is sweet, simple, and perfectly ordinary. And it is more. For the attentive and discerning, there are all the heroines and heroes, goddesses and gods, legendary battles, and brave rescues of any epic tale, and even a quest to save the world that spans generations.

Antique tea set by Ali Ramazan Çiftçi

My grandmother left us in every way that mattered at the beginning of the pandemic but I didn’t really understand that at the time. A stroke coupled with the isolation of lock-downs took their toll on her mind, but she still moved through life, body intact; and her mere breath was enough to ground an entire family. When it became clear she and my grandfather would need more support, they were moved to an assisted living facility and their house of over 30 years was sold quickly. Most of their material possessions – those things they had chosen to color their nearly century long lives – were boxed, sold, donated, or thrown away.

But the intangible things - the things that really matter, the things that had been built on a foundation of Love and moved with care through the rest of us – remained. My grandmother had been the chief builder. Aunts and uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins and second cousins came and went, sorted and packed, and did what they could to support the transition. There was a season of impromptu family reunions during this time. Stories were told to captive audiences. Childhood songs were sung in full harmony, the nostalgia somehow rubbing off on even those who were not part of the original chorus. My little ones were swept up in the arms of older cousins who showed them games, told them jokes, and taught them their lineage all the while. All held a sick aunt just a little closer and gazed at her just a little longer. There was palpable laughter and unspoken sadness and family in motion. We moved like a procession of butterflies, journeying from north to south and back again - the journey so rich with sights and sounds, living and dying, becoming and evermore becoming, as to be the real destination.

During one such visit days before my grandmother’s house was to be sold, I stepped inside and was struck by quiet that was almost touchable. There was no coming and going, no busy and bustle, not even distant laughter or conversation. Or perhaps I had tuned it all out. I walked slowly into the foyer, placing hands and feet where my grandmother’s had been thousands of times. I looked at pictures and little knick-knacks on a small table near the front door and felt life as a kind of prayer. And then I saw her dishes. They seemed suspended in time and space, displayed with her signature precision and care, speaking of the family they had been used to cultivate, unrelentingly bearing witness to everything good and true and real about her.

My grandmother often created Love out of thin air and she had an arsenal of tools to help her - a sewing machine, apple pies, idioms and familiar expressions, spiritual wisdom, ways of organizing and managing day to day, near obsessive cleanliness, and certainly her dishes. As I stood there, I had visions of Thanksgiving dinners and birthday celebrations with laughs around my table. I could see Tuesday teas with my daughters, blueberry muffins in serving dishes embellished with gold, and little hands holding tiny tea cups. I could see myself practicing the art of gluten free pie making using my grandmother’s pie pan (not sure how she would feel about the gluten free part). All of this unfolded in an instant. I had the thought of something important being lost, something that needed to be saved, and whether it was something of the past or the future, I didn’t know. None of it really registered in my conscious awareness at the time. I only felt urgency. “We can’t leave them,” I cried to my mother, reality coming back into focus.

My mother sensed my agitation and we grabbed boxes and began to pack. My daughters watched, understanding more and more Love, animated by Life, with each dish placed into the boxes. We packed most of the serving bowls, trays, silverware, and tablecloths from a stately china cabinet, and as soon as I took a sigh of relief, my mother and I realized we had just begun. Scores of dishes sat neatly in kitchen cabinetry, the old tea set among them. I packed and packed, in a frenzy to squeeze as many dishes in the car as would fit. Somewhere along the way, I began to cry, the overwhelm of the moment just too much for me, the weight of all the Love of this woman bearing down on me. I grasped and held every memory I could with every plate, every glass, and every tray I wrapped. “What’s wrong?” my daughters fretted with furrowed little brows. “She’s saying good-bye,” my mother said softly, understanding more than I did.

My grandmother passed away, this time in body and presence, very shortly thereafter. Grief is an interesting thing in that you can acutely feel the pain of deep loss and yet you can still hold joy. It shows us just how big we are. I have so much joy and gratitude for this woman I grew so close to over the years. I have learned so much about how to be, how to walk in the world with grace and dignity, how to live in Love. I have learned about commitment to creating a little piece of Life that is mine and making it as beautiful as I can. And I have learned about bringing others with me, not through force of will, but through steadfastly holding the truth of who they are, even when they cannot hold it themselves.

Since then, beautiful this and lovely that have made their way into my old cabinetry, joining the dishes of my other grandmother. I have had tea with my daughters using the old tea set, teaching them reverence with each “be careful.” And I have stepped more and more into my name – Eileen, shining Light – a name I inherited from her long before I somehow inherited her dishes, a name passed in form to one daughter and in substance to the other. I have come to understand that while my pies will be imperfect and I will never sew suits without a pattern, her real legacy is the Love she mixed with granules of sugar and infused in spools of thread. And I can meet her there – in kissing the flour-covered faces of my girls as they help me bake, in ironing patches on little pants, in sipping tea in reverie at an old tea set, and in all the little things done in perfectly perfect Love.

5 Easy Ways to Receive More Love

“Consider soulmates to also be in the form of friends and animals, the wind, the tides, the plants, pieces of art, and the moon. Great love lives everywhere.”

— Victoria Erickson

If you’re anything like me, you may not have as much trouble giving, as you do receiving Love and care. Here is a lovely list that may help! But before you even get started, I invite you to slow down, soften, and be a little more present. It’s difficult to notice or receive anything when you’re tense or busy rushing from one thing to the next!

Just for you card by Sybil Schleicher

1. Listen to the birds singing and imagine their song is just for you.

2. Take a deep breath and literally take in your surroundings.

3. Feel your skin tingling under the warm water of your shower or bath.

4. Receive compliments, smiles, hellos, and kind words without resistance or self-deprecation.

5. Appreciate and fully experience your meals. Engage your senses. Imagine your body fed.

For the full list and a free printable, along with events, surprises and delights, and more, become a member!

Black Love

“Black love is Black wealth and they’ll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy”

— Nikki Giovanni, Nikki-Rosa

Black heart by Bryan Garces

Did you know that George Washington Carver discovered hundreds of uses for peanuts, or that Frederick Douglass was a prominent figure in the abolitionist movement, or that Jackie Robinson was the first Black person to play in Major League baseball? Probably. I think these and many, many other figures in Black history, American history, are incredibly important, their contributions meaningful and so very significant. I can't help but wonder, though, if sharing a list of facts, as has been the Black History month custom since time immemorial, or keeping our reveries focused on a select few actually celebrates the beauty and richness of a culture, its depths and complexities.

I suppose I'm also interested, perhaps more interested, in whether their families broke out into full harmony when singing even "Happy Birthday" to a loved one, like mine does? Was weekly church service an event around which all other activities orbited, like it was in my family - where one's best clothes were worn and complimentary dinners were made and served on white tablecloths with special glassware, where the eldest man said prayer among held hands and bowed heads before anyone sat down to eat and share stories? Could their grandmothers wield an otherworldly kind of confidence and create safety and belonging with pies and cakes, and did they carry culture and pass it down in the most subtle ways to their female heirs, like mine could and did? Where did their ever present dignity come from?

I wish Black history museums curated stories of freedom alongside their many stories of slavery. I wish they talked about choirs and music and dance, about the style of Black pastors. I wish they discussed how hip-hop rose from a musical and cultural legacy of self-expression, and even joy, within hardship. I wish they celebrated textured hair and what its evolution may say about the state of an entire people; or how Black girl magic might very well be a thing - woven together, in no small part, from the character-building patience and fortitude required for routine hair care, and the conversation and community-building that happens all the while. I wish a visit would yield a deeper understanding of how language and culture have morphed and evolved, what lovely things remain, and what things have changed as a result of the diaspora, because I’d sincerely like to know more.

Mostly I'd like the evidence to confirm, to bring to life and living color, something I know to be true: Love never dies. It remains. It endures. It will find a way. There is so much beauty, so much richness in Black culture, so much to be celebrated. I invite us all to go a little deeper - to highlight the threads that are unique, to find the ones that are shared, and to celebrate them all as part of a wondrous human tapestry.