Claygallimaufry Pottery: 10

She'd met hell straight on, no backing down, and when she got to the other side, if she did, it would be full steam ahead to wherever the path might lead her. She chuckled, thinking that if there were an etching of her face, it would not be a smooth portrait of youth. It would portray age and experience. And if there was such an etching, she thought, she would not like it. The wrinkles around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes would annoy her.
She turned her head slightly to the right so she could see this imaginary portrait, for after the operation she was blind in the right eye. Now, she viewed everything with a perspective fractionally to the left. She never let on how much this bothered her. She just kept on, keeping on.
Except for the moments when she would sit in reverie in the old Hepplewhite chair placed over by the latticed windows. When the bright sun laced through the glass panes forming small rectangular patterns on the hardwood floor. When the dappled light danced as if it was performing a ballet to one of Chopin's pastoral melodies.
And on the sidetable, easily within her reach, reposed the genie bottle which she had in earlier years nicknamed, the Persian Cadence. She kept it stoppered so none of the spirits past could escape.
Julia vaguely remembered the day her great grandfather had given it to her. What was his name? Ah yes. Paps. If she tried hard she could still smell the earthy scent of his pipe tobacco locked into the fabric of his clothing as he balanced her on his knee. She was too old to sit in his lap, for he himself was fragile with age, but on this occasion he insisted on entwining her in the embrace of his love and sharing stories of his own ancient history.
This carafe, he said, had come over on the boat from the old country. Not in steerage, he emphasized, but in a first class cabin as treasured heirlooms should. And though it appeared black as a night's moonless sky, if one looked with a knowing eye, one could see the passion of life sintered in the red colors floating atop the black and one could see the hope of the eternal in the floating blues scattered amongst the reds.
"Life is like that," he said. "When things seem darkest, there is always life's passion and eternal hope."
Julia's finger softly traced the contours of the bottle's glossy surface. That had been so long ago and almost lost in the obscuring veil that the fog of time drapes over the past.
Yes. She had cherished the Persian Cadence. For when she wanted to, she could outwit memory's timekeeper, unstopper the bottle, and let the memories flow out touching the passions she once felt and the idealistic hopes she had once held dear, for it was these that had given her the strength to keep on, keeping on.