Hi all,
For those keeping track at home, the story about the photographer from last newsletter is finished. She finally decided what she was going to do, and I wrote it down, and then I was done. Now for the dreaded revisions…
I am currently staring at my teapot instead of doing revisions. It’s a big round-bellied teapot with a handle on the top. The spout is straight and attached in such a way and at such an angle that it looks like a funnel was stuck on the side. The glaze is cobalt blue with gradations of darker colour in splotches. It is very beautiful.
I saw it and a smaller teapot of the same colour in the window of a little corner store on Cambie Street while walking home from the Skytrain station many years ago. I love cobalt blue, so I went in and asked how much. The lady said 50 dollars for the big one or 35 for the little one. I wasn’t sure, told her 50 was more than I’d expected. She suggested I go for the little one, but a too-small teapot is no one’s friend. She told me they were made by a single mother, a refugee from Iran, with three children and no job. She said she’d agreed to put them in her window as a favour to her. I wondered a little if I was being told a story, but also I loved the look of the teapot and the idea of helping that mother (if she existed). I bought it.
I brought it home and made tea, which was when I discovered that its function was not quite up to the standard of its beautiful form. The spout dripped rather badly. It was hard to fill from the kettle because the handle was relatively short and went directly over the opening at the top, so I had to lean it to one side to get the water from the kettle to pour in, and then I burned my hand. I was frustrated by its flaws, but it was my teapot (after all I’d paid 50 dollars for it), and it wasn’t too bad because I didn’t drink all that much tea.
When I moved in with Mum and Dad, they already had a teapot (that didn’t drip and was easy to fill), so the cobalt blue one lived in the cupboard and I made Dad’s tea in his mother’s teapot. After Dad died I developed a tea habit, using his ugly fish mug and his mother’s teapot and rose congou tea as part of my writing ritual. (A writing ritual, for those who don’t know, is a fussy set of things done or tools used every time one writes, in order to trick the brain into writing with more ease. Mine consists of a cheap notebook and a fountain pen and a special mug and two special coasters, a candle, and rose congou tea.)
My sister and sister-in-law moved in for a bit recently, and they drank tea too, so to avoid conflict I pulled my cobalt blue teapot out of the cupboard and adopted it as mine, leaving the one that didn’t drip for them. I may have grumbled a bit.
But I realise while writing this that I really love it now. I’ve grown used to its dripping and always have a cloth on my desk for that eventuality. I’ve learned the trick of tipping it with one hand (which has perhaps become less sensitive to heat) while pouring from the kettle with the other. I use it only to drink tea for writing (when I’m drinking random tea I borrow the other teapot), so it’s become a valued part of my writing ritual. The cobalt blue teapot lives on my desk on a silver tea trivet thing that a friend of mine gave me when he and his mother were clearing out some cupboards, which adds a touch of class to the whole affair.
I like the idea of the two stories – that mother from Iran making teapots, possibly using a funnel to form the spouts, and me pouring a cup of rose congou tea, cloth in hand, before sitting down to write.
FROM THE SPIRAL NOTEBOOK
An aubade is a poem about lovers and the dawn and leaving. Here’s one from my notebook.
Aubade
You hissed and spat a thunderstorm
one orange one black
spiralling into the cotoneaster
branches bent low by cats
thrashing Then day dropped
like a bucket of water
and you forked as lightning
in your separate directions
NOTES
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And thanks, as always, for reading.
Yours,
Kelsey
kelseyandrews.ca
The poem is beautiful. Your poetry is an inspiration! Love the idea of a writing ritual. I also believe a ritual offers us confidence to put words on the page.
Very nice poem Kelsey ❤️ Great teapot story too! I have a bright orange (the compliment to blue), one that I intend to paint some green branches onto, probably in the Autumn :)