My wife keeps a few boxes of family treasures in storage. Occassionally she will bring them out to enjoy them and show them to our children — usually around the holidays.
Items include a family Bible and various books from Norway dating back to the 1700s, various trinkets from past World Fairs and old newspapers containing articles about the Lincoln assassination and the end of WWI. Among these treasures is an old wooden spoon that her grandmother likely used everyday for the good part of a century. It is a beautiful object — not because its been kept in a pristine state but rather for the opposite reason. It carries the markings and stains of its use, the edges worn down from scraping against a cast iron pan. When you pick it up it is heavy, made of a dense wood. The handle is smooth and surprisingly comfortable. It feels amazing in your hand — like a perfectly broken-in leather baseball mitt. I am not one taken by nostalgia, but it is as if you can feel the history and energy when you pick it up.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many objects around our home would weather the years so gracefully and be held by my grandchildren with the same satisfaction.
For some reason my wife kept the spoon out this year as she tucked away her remaining treasures. Surprisingly, she decided to start using it in our kitchen. At first it seemed wrong — the spoon should be preserved and placed back in the box. However, after some thought it made perfect sense. This spoon was never intended to be a masterpiece — its lines and composition are decidedly unremarkable. What makes this spoon so potent is its longevity and use. Rather than fixing the object in its current state, it will become more beautiful with continued use. My wife and I will make meals using some of the same recipes her grandmother used, with the same spoon. It won’t match our other utensils but will feel better in the hand and perhaps help us prepare better meals. This type of beauty is largely lost on a society obsessed with aquiring the latest, newest gadget. How many spoons have we discarded or lost over the years? I can’t imagine any were discarded because they stopped working or wore out.