What Holds Our Stories?
by Leslie Shalduha
What holds our stories? Our stories live on in house plants given a place of honor in a friend’s home, a treasured piece of furniture passed to an old friend, a meaningful painting passed to a neighbor or a crate of beloved books shared with a stranger. This is how geography or death cannot separate us, not really. For the memory of how this plant, that table or painting came to us keeps the story alive. In time, I suppose, bits of the story are lost in the telling. However, the energy of each story carries on and on, becoming bigger and stronger to create the true essence of life. I remember how such a seemingly simple item has defined my life, beginning in early childhood.
Sitting on the floor of my bedroom in El Paso, empty glass bottles were my toys. I passed many hours organizing them atop a little table, sorting by size and color. I filled them with water and food coloring, holding each up to sunbeams streaming through the windows to see how the color changed. As I claimed each jar from the kitchen, I unscrewed the lid, sniffing delicately to become familiar with the strange and wondrous aromas drifting from the bottle; scents of vanilla, dill, and garlic waking the herbalist in me, long before I even understood the call.
The contents shifted to bits of this and that over time – tiny feathers and rocks collected from the dry, sandy yard outside my back door and hair clippings from under the chair where Mom cut my brothers’ hair. During my teen years, I scrounged all over town for empty bottles with interesting labels to decorate my bedroom. In the Navy, we used empty liquor bottles as candle holders to light our cigarettes, the wax dripping down the side until the bottle was encased in layers of melted wax. As an adult, I decorated my first home with unique glass bottles, showcased here and there in artistic ways.
As a married woman, my collection shifted to jars. It occurs to me now that jars are the mature version of my glass obsession. My husband and daughter’s lunches were packed in recycled jars that I first purchased filled with balls of homemade mozzarella cheese from an Ohio revolutionist bakery. Years later, when I mentioned to the bakery owner how I kept these jars to reuse at home, thinking how honored she would be, she puckered up her face and said, “Those jars were meant to be returned after use.” This, one of my first experiences that those on the edge of social justice are sometimes not the most pleasant in person. Nearly 20 years later, those jars are still in my cupboard in daily use, with bits of rust on their white lids.
Early in my marriage I befriended a woman through work. Our friendship blossomed as she transitioned from a long marriage and a life of raising children, cattle and gardens.
When Linda sold her farmhouse and that way of life, she passed cases of canning jars on to me, forever sealing our friendship with stories of her past and my future. Over the years our friendship has deepened; changing from one of mentor to equal, our conversations shifting from daily to spiritual matters.
Despite a few earlier experiences canning, this was the true start to my canning years. I filled dozens of jars every season with Aunt Connie’s famous cucumber relish, sauce from organic tomatoes purchased by the crate up the road at Thompson’s Farm and applesauce made from our own homegrown apples. An aromatic cedar breeze streamed through my kitchen window as like-minded friends gathered; laughter and chatter filled the room, sweat beading on our brows as we stirred and strained, canned and sealed nourishment for our families.
Canning jars have become my main mode of storage; Open a cupboard door and see row after row, filled with nuts, dried fruit, tea and herbs, with pasta, rice and chocolate chips. Peek in the fridge and find jar after jar, filled with sliced onions, apples and leftovers. The cupboards are bursting with all sizes of jars and the drawers are overflowing with metal lids and rings, funnels and strainers.
As an herbalist, wondering if it was better for the Earth to sell my dried tea blends in paper bags or glass jars, I first chose half-pints with quilted diamonds that made up the texture of the jar. The vibrant colors of calendula, rose, hawthorn and chocolate mint shining brightly through the glass, tempted buyers to stop by my farmer’s market booth. Unlike that revolutionist baker in Ohio, I hoped very much that those buying my herbal blends would keep and use the jars for years and years to come. Perhaps there is a woman out there who thinks of the day she met an enthusiastic herbalist, finding joy in the memory of the day she was inspired to create her own herbal blends as she sips her steaming cup of morning tea.
Over time I created a robust, tasty cold black and herbal tea blend. I dreamed of the day I would sell this tea to the masses, imagining the labels that would incorporate full-figured women to artfully describe my True Brew creation. I pictured my cousin, Desi, as the model for this art, long before our relationship came to an end. I spent long enough yearning for a certain look to those labels that my daughter eventually came of an age and experience to draw what my heart insisted upon.
At first, I sold by the gallon without labels to close friends, before transitioning to pint size and swing top jars. Nestled on a bed of ice at the farmer’s market, those sexy vessels glittered as the sun’s rays hit the dark brown tea, enticing buyers to stop for a taste test of this chug-worthy brew. Folk would exclaim over the incongruity of the flavors – thyme, juniper, birch bark and cinnamon. After a sip or two, eyes wide they would exclaim in either delight or not. Strong flavors are not for all – the bravery that people exhibited delighted me. The joy when someone would say “I do not like tea, ever,” before trying mine and being totally blown away, buying a jar and wandering off with a story to share filled my soul.
As I work to part with most of my earthly goods for a move abroad, I have sold case after case of jars of all sizes. These, a hot item as people perused my life’s offerings, haggling over prices for clothing and pottery, for furniture and art. Jars, though, were the one item that did not often bring questions of how much lower would I go?
I wonder, then, of the stories that will continue with the passing of these not so simple, after all, vessels. Will they offer young mothers a chance to gather and visit as they put up tomatoes from their garden? Will a husband open his lunchbox and be inspired to write a poem as he opens each jar to explore the goodies inside – a sweet peach, a chewy oatmeal cookie or homemade applesauce made fresh the day before? Will colleagues come together outside of work to press a batch of pear cider in the fall, a bonfire nearby to warm their hands as they sip that fresh cider and discuss the local gossip? Will a child find the bag of miscellaneous spice bottles and spirit them away to her room to fill with tiny treasures? And these thoughts, my friends, bring me much joy and comfort.