Broken Spoons, Happy Memories
I love these spoons. OK, granted, they are not spoons. They are spoon-shaped spoon-holders. And they are broken. Yet again. The royal blue-and-yellow piece-in-pieces is from Portugal, a gift from my parents from a winter ventures to the Algarve. It was my first spoon-holder and I used it for all it was worth. And then some. Obviously. The second, from Ma-dreed, is a memento of a trip with my own family, last spring, to a city I could love for the rest of my life, la bella Madrid. Soy Madrileno.
I don’t recall how long it took before the first of these spoons hit my ceramic tile floor, or how many times since I have lovingly glued them back together (along with, on occasion, my fingers). I do know that they were been glued together for the last time, yesterday, after which I slipped them into dishwater and they immediately slipped back into pieces.
I am defeated. And so, I have taken a picture of them for memory’s sake. I will now steel myself and attempt to deliver their remnants to the garbage where, ceramic that they are, they may return to the earth from whence they came. (This is a poetic leap on my part. I haven’t the foggiest clue what the source of ceramic is – sand, perhaps?)
I had to call my mom to confirm the origins of the first spoon-rest.. (btw, don’t call them spoon holders, even though they are, because that refers to an upright cannister for the corralling of utensils at large.)
She reported that hers from Madrid, a gift from me, is also broken.
“I still have an olive holder though,” she reports. ” It has a little divider, you know, so there is a place for the olives and a place for the pits. I don’t use it because it is too disgusting. you know, after you spit out the pit there it is for all the world to behold. Ugh.”
And so it come to this : I must part with these mementos, but I hold out hope. Surely there is a sensible, creative soul out there in the world who can make a souvenir spoon-rest that actually holds up. A spoon-rest for the ages, that will not fall to pieces when it meets my tile floor, that is intended only for on display in a wire rack on the wall, a spoon-rest to be used and loved, that may still serve as a remembrance? If you find this soul, please let me know.