Personal Joys

“We want to be in YOUR family!” hotel staff would buoyantly exclaim in response to my kin’s general tomfoolery and raucous laughter. Affectionately dubbed “the prisoner transfer,” we siblings would convene semiannually in random Interstate 57 motels to pass the aging-parent baton allowing both ourselves and parents a change of scenery and posse of caregivers. Our planned weekend overnights to share the load would occur somewhere between our cities and include a rollicking catching up, routine medical updates, and typical slapstick fodder of our collective DNA. 

A recent reader essay in Victoria magazine got me thinking. It was a loving tribute to a set of bone china, recently passed to –and eagerly accepted by– a younger generation. My own cupboards reveal that I am the lucky (though some would label me unlucky) recipient of three sets of ancestral dishware, each with its own pattern and ethereal dialogue of its forebears encompassing joy, hardship, and most notably, perseverance. 

Regardless of where I have hung my hat, the sight of blooming forsythia warms my heart every spring. Roots in rural Pennsylvania germinated my love of the perfume of rich, pregnant earth coupled with the eye candy of sunny yellow flowers brave enough to promise warmer days …