Jars

Growing up, every summer we would travel to a far away land, known as Colorado, to visit my grandparents on their 60 acre farm. It was an incredible place. The fields seemed endless and the various sheds and buildings stood as reminders of farming days that had since ceased. It wasn't a lifeless place, far from it, since all the trappings of what a farm is remained. Even though they were silent as if waiting for the farming to resume. As long as we were careful and didn't play with anything dangerous, we were free to experience all that the retired farm could offer. Except there was one small shed we weren't allowed to enter. It was the cellar shed in which all of grandma's canning supplies were kept.

 

 

      For years she meticulously stored in glistening jars most of the food her family would need for the winter. She had inherited some Ball and bought a few Masons. Each jar had important work to do. None of them could be spared for idle play or worse to careless accidents. No, each one meant a provision for life.That was nothing with which to be careless. This was insight from generations of mothers.

 

     Two years ago my grandparents decided to move to Wyoming to live with my mother. It took several months to clean and pack up the farm. My grandparents had lived there since they were in their teens, so there was much to do. Then the day came for us to make a trip down to thier place and claim anything we wanted before it was packed up, given away or hauled off. Many times over that extended weekend we all found ourselves suspended in time through thought as we ran our fingers over a this or a that. It was a long process. But the last thing we needed to do was speed it up. Then after several years, it was time to move out the Masons and the Balls. They were going to my sister since she was the family's canner. It should have been a matter of placeing same sized jars in boxes and taking them to the car. But it wasn't. Things were changing. The past was being displaced and made to float around like a feather caught in a gust. It is now up to my sister to do something with that past. Perhaps they will stay in a cupboard for many years, undisturbed, until her daughter can sweep up the years and breath newness into the jars by using them. Then again, maybe they will all come crashing down in one massive calamity as my sister is canning this year's peaches. It is hard to say. Then again, it is easy to forget that glass jars cannot hold the stuff of life. And yet . . .