the legend of betty's tea cups.

I'm sitting here attempting to work on a paper, drinking coffee and missing my grandmother. Betty Trinter died last January, leaving behind a million little legends, stories, memories and treasures that she scattered to her 3 sons, 7 grandchildren, and 3 great grandchildren.


One such treasure is her willow patterned china which has been divided among us. I ended up with the tea cups, and as I drink from one now I can't help thinking of the story its picture tells which my grandma used to tell me as a child.

Supposedly, derived from a Chinese folk-legend, the story depicted on the China is about Impossible Love (which hearing this story as a little girl, seemed the only love worth having). The legend is this: the daughter of a wealthy man falls in love with her father's clerk. Her father, of course, views this match to a mere accountant as completely inappropriate and arranges a marriage with a powerful Duke, who is not the young woman's beloved. Before the marriage takes place, the clerk breaks into the castle, rescues his true love, and the two lovers flee into the night on the Duke's ship. By the time the father and the Duke realize the two have gone, it is too late. They have sailed away. However, sometime later, the Duke discovers the that happy pair have taken refuge on a nearby island. The Duke sends his soldiers to the island, where they capture and kill the lovers. However, the gods take pity on the young people in love, and turn them into doves, so that they can still be together, far above the world of their plight.

This story, with its violence and fantasy, and its message of love overcoming all obstacles seems so appropriate on the lips of Betty. A woman of stubborn strength and beauty, who seemed to me to be fearless, always taking us on journeys to the beach, the park, or the library -- pointing out wildflowers, trees and birds along the way, she seemed to possess an endless knowledge of the legend behind every creature and creation. A lover of the beach, gardens, literature and art, she was who I inherited so many of my passions from. Even though she grew older, and spent more time in bed than out of it, that part of her life seems somehow false to me. A mere interlude in the story of a true adventurer. Like death for the lovers; it is in disruption, but not a lasting reality.

Drinking from this cup now, and dreaming of this story, I am hoping that I have some of her magic in me; that incredible ability to see the legend and find the story in the most ordinary things. I imagine she is something like those doves. Having outwitted not only the obstacles of life, but death itself... She is happier as a dove, I imagine. But still, I can't help missing her.

Its funny how something as small as a teacup can hold so much meaning, and so many memories.

I think she would have liked this quotation, it seems to describe her way of life so exactly: "To live amidst the universe without thinking about it -- why that is to have Beethoven on the player and be afraid to turn it on... If only I had enough of the volcanic awareness needed to realize that every second is a miracle. We exist, therefore I gasp." -paul west

I hope you are dreaming of impossible love made possible, obstacles overcome, and gasping at those ordinary miracles of every moment.