Pot Luck

Her collection of pots are like her collection of friends, some tall and angular and excitable, others round and full, offering stability. Her favorites are the ones that came unexpectedly—the small misshapen bowl plucked from a garage sale for fifty cents, a beginner’s pot with thick walls and an unglazed bottom that she uses as a mortar for blending spices and dried herbs.


She remembers the guy at the furniture store who sold her the Kokopelli for a couple of dollars. She wonders how it got to his store in the first place, there among overstuffed sofas, Queen Anne chairs, delicately flowered china plates, the Chippendale dining set with twelve chairs. The pot was as out of place as the barrel-chested cigar smoker who owned the store.

Most precious is the lathed redwood burl, a gift from the maker. A renaissance man with a love of knowledge, he fashioned a life for himself in much the same way that he created the wooden bowls and fine cabinetry that provide his livelihood.

The Native American wedding vase, chipped from its topple during the Loma Prieta earthquake, is a relic from an old love that grew toward friendship and away from romance. She wonders if she should gift he and his new wife with the pot, but decides against it. The past is often better left there—in the past.