That Old Blue Willow Has Me in Its Spell

A BREAKFAST ROOM
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUSThe Epicure

This painting appeared first in The Seven Ages of Childhood, 1909
by American author of verse and parodies
Carolyn Wells, 1862 - 1942
& American illustrator of magazines and children's books
Jessie Willcox Smith, 1863 - 1935
(later reprinted as a Vintage Green Tiger Press Postcard)

Blue Willow
My fate might not have been the dreamer's,
No time for prose and all for froth,
If the ware had not been old blue willow
From which I supped my daily broth!

A child, I lived the quaint tradition,
I was the Chinese maid, Kong Shee,
Flitting the bridge with Chang, the lover,
From the convent house by the willow tree.

I drained my mug at every serving
To rid it of its milky sea
And bring to light a gull still sailing
Above the swaying willow tree!

A whimsy thought but one for toying,
For who has power to estimate
The end of a young poetic fancy
When nurtured from a willow plate?

by Mildred D. Shacklett

Shacklett's poem can be found in the well - loved
anthology from my formative years:
The American Album of Poetry
compiled by American radio personality
Ted Malone, 1908 - 1989


Malone's book, filled with sentimental selections and companionable commentary, nurtured my poetic fancy as did the traditional Blue Willow bread and butter plates upon which my grandmother served us many a childhood breakfast of "dippy eggs and toast soldiers." When I got married, I also grew enamored of Wedgwood's pastel rendition of the pattern called "Chinese Legend," that Gerry and I discovered on one of our trips to England in the early 90s:


At the suggestion of my friend Ann de Forest, I recently read Rebecca Solnit's extended essay, A Field Guide to Getting Lost, which carries a recurring theme of "The Blue of Distance." I guess it should not have come as a surprise to find Blue Willow amongst the ubiquitous images of blueness!

I was touched by the truth and beauty of Solnit's insight into our ageless attraction to "that blue - and - white stuff whose most familiar imagery is also a small tale of tragedy, the blue willow pattern of birds, trees, water, and separated lovers, like the items of a song you could drink from, teacups that would always be a cup of sorrow" (125).

Ah, a cup of sorrow.

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Some Nice Books for Children & Collectors
"She was seeing what no one else in that room could see. Leaning willows and running water. Blackbirds balancing precariously on slender reeds. The river. . . . Her eyes were fixed on the ragged line of blue - green foliage that marked the river. There the willows grew, and in amongst them would be shade and running water and an endless number of delights that Janey couldn't have listed but which she could feel very plainly in her bones. It was the same feeling she always had when looking at the willow plate. Something fine was about to happen" (66 - 68).
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"One morning Chang wrote, 'As the willow blossom falls onto the water, so my heart flies to you. Meet me on the banks of the river, as the tide turns under the moon.' When night came, the lovers finally met under the weeping willow, hidden from the Great Pagoda by an apple tree."

****************
"It was some time later, while the last leaves were still on the willow, turning yellow from cool evenings, that there was a cloudburst in the late afternoon. The merchant was at his scrolls, writing with black ink and an empty heart, when he heard the villagers cry out on the opposite shore of the river, and he went to the window.

"His heart leapt at the sight, for just above the foot bridge that led to his daughter's pavilion, there appeared a most wondrous rainbow of every color, and while the villagers watched, and while the merchant watched, two swallows fluttered above the willow tree and kissed, their wings making the sound of wind in bamboo."


SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, March 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Willow Willow Willow
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Detail from The Epicure

Time to Write a Letter

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Little House on the Prairie Historic Site
Indpenedence, Kansas

Samuel Gordon Lindsey
My grandfather's brother, in 1913; age 20.
In 1887 my great-grandparents headed west from Ohio to settle a homestead in Nebraska. By 1893, they had erected not a one-room but, proudly, a two-room home on the prairie, where my great-grandmother Sally (Sarah Elisabeth Hartman Lindsey) sat one summer day writing a long letter to her niece, enchantingly named Eyrie Winegarden. What I especially like is that Sally explains how the babies are napping while she writes. So many times when my children were small, my own letters began: “The boys are now asleep, so I have a moment to answer your letter.”

Some things never change! Sally begins:

Dear Eyrie

I am (nearly) alone this afternoon, with my babies Beatrice and Gordon both asleep. Jimmie went 5 miles away to see a sick horse this morning, taking Wayne with him. Mabel and Jim are at Sunday School 3 ½ miles distant since dinner. And I have a quiet time in which to write. You know, Eyrie, few of the homesteaders have another room where they can go and read or write undisturbed.

Sally goes on to describe a summer of severe drought, punctuated by a few severe thunderstorms. During one of these storms, her husband Jimmie was struck by lightning. While he was recuperating, some old friends

who used to live in J’s native town in Ohio, came eight miles to see him. They are well-to-do people spending a few months here for their health. They brought him some oranges, a can of peaches, and Gordon a new dress. After Wayne had eaten of the peaches, his papa was telling him we would move east where fruit grows and then we could have some. I was out, and when I came in, Wayne said, “And Mama don't you think they grow on trees”! It has only been a year since he learned there was such a thing as a tree. He scarcely ever sees one, they usually die in the first year.

In fact, Wayne, who was four at the time, did grow up to see many trees; and indeed, the Lindseys did move east, eventually settling in Kansas in 1895—the year that my grandfather, Paul Jones Lindsey, was born in a covered wagon as the family was traveling in search of their permanent home. It is sad and strange for me to think that my great-grandmother long outlived the two babies who lay napping that day while she wrote to Eyrie. Samuel Gordon Lindsey (after whom my own little Sam is named) died in France, 31 July 1918, at the Battle of the Aisne-Marne. And Edna Beatrice Lindsey Smith died in 1922, aged 31; though so young, she was already the mother of six.

Thinking of them all -- Sally, Eyrie, Beatrice, her children -- brings to mind the following tender-hearted poem that I have loved since girlhood:

THOUGHTS OF A MODERN MAIDEN

Throb of my heart, throb of my heart,
How did you get here, where did you start?

Ages ago in some lowly thing,
Pulsating since with unceasing spring?

Through countless lifetimes, from mother to young,
Heart throb, heart throb, a rhythm has sung.

Once in a queen, twice in a slave,
Wife of prince, wife of a knave.

Mother to daughter, down through the years,
Some heirs to gladness, some heirs to tears.

Defended by vassal, seized by a lord,
Sentenced to death but saved by a word.

Women of virtue, women of shame,
Women of desert, women of slum,

Down to my grandmere, sweet and demure,
Down to my mother, patient and pure.

Why was I forged as a link in this chain?
What of the past shall I break or maintain?

Heart throb, heart throb, wonder past knowing,
Where did you come from, where are you going?

by Edith M. Roberts

Roberts's poem can be found in the well - loved
anthology from my formative years:
The American Album of Poetry
compiled by American radio personality
Ted Malone, 1908 - 1989