Magic China

You probably think that you're looking at a teacup, saucer, creamer, and sugar bowl--and you are. But that's not all they are.

They're magic. When I look at them, I see a large, extended family gathered for a meal--probably Thanksgiving. A couple of children (one looks like me) sit at the dining room table with the adults with smug looks on their faces while they listen to the rest of the kids, who have been banished to the kitchen. From the kitchen there is laughter and talking--and probably not much eating and not much of a sense of having been banished.

I hear children playing hide and seek somewhere upstairs, running and falling on hardwood floors, and women are in the kitchen doing dishes, chatting about the latest phase their children are going through. Snores come from the living room, where the men are "watching" the after-dinner game.

When I look at the dishes, I can smell raisin-filled cookies, the ones that even people who don't like raisins like. The ones that no one can ever duplicate, even though we all have the recipe. No one really tries anymore.

When I look at the dishes, I see Grandma wrapping a present, seams and corners perfectly matched and folded. I hold the tape for her while she cuts and folds, and then I watch in amazement as she curls ribbon with the edge of her shears.

When I look at the dishes, I am transported back to Grandma's bedroom. She's thrown a blanket over the headboard and got out all her flannelgraph for me to play with. Right now, Daniel is praying in the center of a mess of hungry lions.

And when I look at the dishes, I'm holding a hand of Author cards. I'm sitting across from my brother, next to Grandma. I'm wondering if Tim has Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

And after years of being wrapped in paper and stored first in an attic, and
then in a garage, these dishes have once again been lovingly washed and placed in a china cabinet--where there is finally room for them, where they belong. Their cheery yellow color and bright pansies brighten the room, just as their former owner's smile once did. They're very fragile, and some of the pieces have been glued together, and the old glue has made them turn brown. But they're still magic, because to look at them is to think Grandma and to brush away a tear or swallow a lump.