I enjoy the ritual of making tea and often take the time to savor it on the balcony to enjoy the morning sun. A few weeks ago I rushed to make a cup of tea before joining my colleagues in a zoom meeting. In my mind, I was already at the meeting and reviewing some of the agenda items we wanted to discuss. I was brought back to my kitchen when Nanna’s teacup slipped out of my hands. It shattered on the floor and so did my heart. Nanna passed away a few months ago and in this moment I felt deeply connected to her and her gifts.
I cleaned up the pieces, but couldn’t get myself to throw them away. I left the pieces on the counter, where they still live today. I joined my meeting, and two of my colleagues, already in our virtual meeting room, welcomed me and asked, ‘How are you’? I couldn’t respond with a simple, polite, ‘Fine, and you?’ I shared about the loss of the cup, of Nanna, of grandmothers. “I respond[ed] to the ritual greeting as if it were a genuine question” (van Manen, 2015, p. 10). As I reflect on this moment with my colleagues we are drawn to the writing of Van Manen (2015) who draws our attention to that “instant where the opportunity to truly meet the other exists” (p12).
A few weeks after this event, there was a belated response (to me, I’m certain) in an article by Karen Meyer (2010) about Living Inquiries. She wrote about the moment she dropped her grandmother’s teacup! Karen decided to bury the largest piece in a planter on her balcony. Maybe I will do the same after attempting to piece/peace it together with gold glue…
References:
Meyer, K. (2010). Living inquiry: Me, my self, and other. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing, 26(1) 85-96.
Van Manen, M. (2015). Ritualizes Experiences. In Writing in the dark: Phenomenological studies in interpretive inquiry. Walnut Creek, California: Left Coast Press, Inc. doi:10.4324/9781315415574
