My sister and I attended a writing workshop where we were challenged to write an "ode" on an object from our childhood. We both began writing immediately and wrote until the time was up. Only then did we realize that we had chosen the same object from our childhood.
Ode to the Spinning Stool by
Carol Applegarth Stearns
How the old spinning stool always took
the prominent place in the center of the large country kitchen of the
ranch home.
How my Mother would sit on it looking
out the east window as she did the dishes or peeled potatoes.
How my Mother would sit on the old
spinning stool stirring the pot as she prepared the family dinner.
How after many years, the old stool
lost its cover, but, oh how it could still spin.
How the grandchildren sprawled on their
bellies on top of the old stool and would spin until they got dizzy
and fell off.
For my Mother who sat on the old
spinning stool looking out the west window of the little home in town
and wonder how 90 years could pass so quickly.
Ode to Mother's Spinning Stool by
Helen Applegarth McConnell
I don't remember the arrival of
Mother's spinning stool but I remember watching her sit on its
cushioned seat as she washed dishes in the yellow kitchen of the
ranch house where I grew up.
I remember the spinning stool in the
corner supporting the pyramid of metal cream cans. I remember the
clatter of those cans in the dark when my sister bumped the spinning
stool as we came home from a teen dance.
I remember watching Mother sitting on
it's fraying cushioned seat washing dishes in the ever changing
kitchen of the house they moved to while I was in college. I remember
my daughter poking a finger through the crumbling cushion while the
spinning stool was spinning which pinched her finger severely.
I remember watching Mother washing
dishes sitting on a towel covering the bare metal seat of the
spinning stool in the tiny kitchen of their house in town.
I gave the spinning stool to one of
Mother's young granddaughters. She plans to recover it.
