That Purple Lid

Because love is not always matchy-matchy

Almond Tarte and Agua de Cacao

The moment I let go of hosting the art show, the faucet opened wide. Life responded, and I felt the energy flowing. Not a rush, not a gush, just a steady, friendly, productive flow. A purr.

Ideas were birthed from the sense of freedom that a good “no” often invites, and I decided to switch around a few things.

As a start, I would turn my studio into both a working studio and a showing studio. In the last couple of years, people have asked me if they could come over and see my work at my home, and every time, I have been hesitant. Words like privacy, sanctuary, not to mention happy mess came to mind. I wasn’t ready.

But all of a sudden, I was. Well, maybe not ready-ready, but ready enough to create a workshop, make a poster, and start signing up people.

It would be a Heart Workshop. and it would be lovely. We would share our hearts, eat a delicious dessert, drink some fresh Jamaica water, meditate, BE, and paint. Also, setting a date committed me to re-create my studio and transform it into its new dual purpose. I work well with a deadline.

The workshop was last Saturday afternoon, and by 11 am, the studio featured a sweetly respectable art gallery alongside its working area.

I baked a tarte, my friend Ale brewed a fragrant pot of Agua de Cacao, and people started to arrive.

The pot of Agua de Cacao is what I want to talk about today.

Once the potent, traditional elixir was made, Ale placed it in the middle of the table where several women were already painting.

But it wasn’t just any pot, it was my large, orange, beautiful, beloved Le Creuset pot.

I have a long (think over 30 years) and deep love story with Le Creuset. I bought the original set at a garage sale in the 90s. I think that of that set, two pieces remain, and live here with me. They have held my kids’ meals since they were born, have allowed me to stir soup into them while crying, embraced batch after batch of pasta carbonara, basically partenered with me in an ordinary big life.

They have also moved to new kitchens more than a dozen times, but when I packed my boxes to send to Mexico, I thought about leaving them in storage. They are heavy, and also, for some reason, I felt that they would be out of place here.

I still can’t imagine why I thought that.

But then, two days before leaving, the boxes ready to be taped, I made myself a batch of chai tea in the sweet smallest orange saucepan the way I had done for years. I stood over the stove, let the cardamom and the black pepper warm my heart, knowing that this would likely be the last time I prepared chai tea in my little cottage’s kitchen, and right there, I knew that there was no way I was leaving my Le Creuset family behind.

I re-packed the boxes, decided to let go of the goal to not pay an extra weight charge at the airport, and off we flew together towards our new life. In a way, bringing them with me felt like an even bigger commitment to the move.

For a few days, we stayed in a small apartment until the house was ready enough to live in. It was Lila, Tiji, me, and many boxes. Wisdom said to leave the boxes untaped and use the few pans that came with the rental, but my heart said heck no, open the boxes and take out a few of them. So I did.

It felt funny seeing them away from the Pacific Northwest, on a stove that wasn’t mine, with no kids to cook for. Would they ever belong here? Would I?

I think now of the refugees I have met and of how some of the women had brought with them, by boat or by foot, a favorite wooden spoon, a salt shaker.

Eventually, we moved into the house, and within hours, I placed their happy little round selves and their happy little round lids on a wonderful, just-finished, polished concrete kitchen counter.

They immediately looked as though they had always lived at the foot of the jungle, their bright orange enamel color singing to the bright green of the trees, as though instead of long gray winters, they, like me, were now ready to thrive near the sounds of the roosters and the visits of the colibris.

The months passed. Together, we learned to cook Sopa de Tortilla and other local dishes. Family and friends visited, and all loved preparing food in my happy Le Creuset family.

Then one evening, with many cooks in the kitchen and also with a loud bang, the big pot’s bright orange lid slipped and crashed onto the tiled floor. Shattered.

I looked at it. It had never occurred to me that something so permanent could shatter so quickly. Fade, maybe… possibly crack a little. But this? The three pieces of enamel revealing their cast iron insides felt indecent. And mildly tragic.

The person from whose hands the lid had slipped is someone I love, someone who knows about these pans, someone who looked mortified. It was my priority to let her know that it was not that big a deal. Or rather, to let her think that it was not that big a deal.

We picked up the pieces and some of us talked about gluing them back together. For a while, I carried them in my car in case I ran into just the right craft person to do the repair. But I didn’t, and so quietly, one afternoon, I thanked the broken orange pieces, and I deposited them one by one into one of the village’s blue plastic trash bin.

I thought that eventually, I would buy another lid even though it would cost many pesos.

When a few weeks later a dear Le Creuset-loving friend came to visit me for the first time, she was in my kitchen less than an hour before she noticed that something was off.

“Laura,” she asked with her eyebrows doing the thing they do when she means business, “what’s up with the missing lid?” I explained, I told her it wasn’t that big a deal, that I would eventually buy another one.

She listened, she said something about this not being right and when she left a few days later, she told me to watch for the mail.

It wasn’t long before a package arrived and in it, a beautiful, shiny, perfectly whole …purple lid.

Her love is fierce, and when she sees something not quite right, she fixes it. Also, she knows I love purple.

I placed the lid on top of its new home, the only non-orange piece of enamel in the whole kitchen. It looked strange; it didn’t match. It was a question mark.

It wasn’t long before I loved the purple lid so very much. I loved its story. I loved the memory of the winter dinner when its predecessor had crashed to the floor, people I cherish gathered in my kitchen, cooking, talking, living. And yes, breaking things is part of living. I love that my friend cared enough to notice - and to fix it.

The pots hold years of stories, many of them mine and some of them from another family before me, long ago.

The purple lid is the loudest of them all.

Love is not in the perfection, the matchy-matchy. Love is sometimes about the crash, the clash, the weird, the triggering.

May love always win.