There is no spoon

Spoon boy: Do not try and bend the spoon. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Spoon boy: There is no spoon.
Neo: There is no spoon?
Spoon boy: Then you'll see, that it is not the spoon that bends, it is only yourself.

Ah, The Matrix. One of those terrific movies with a lovely shivery plot twist that leaves us simultaneously fooled and delighted. That delight had definitely waned by the 350,000th Keanu Reeves "Whoa" in Matrix 3 but still I paid to get in to see them- still feeling foolish, but not quite as delighted.

I mention this because I am getting ready to do something...kind of big for me and the way I deal with that is to distract myself-HARD. I can get wrapped up in the littlest thing. Like Proust's madeleine, I can be transported into some deep memory with just a tiny nudge from the corporal world. In this case- a spoon.

I looked into my silverware drawer tonight. My silverware drawer is the utensil representation of the apocalypse- the silverware sorter-thing sits atop a mind boggling array of other kitchen utensils- garlic press and cherry/olive pitter, one small heart shaped cookie cutter, various spatulas and wooden spoons, measuring spoons and knives. You may ask youself...Knives? Loose in a drawer? Fear not. It is ever a joke among the near and dear- pretty much anyone who has ever cooked by my side in my kitchen that you can't break skin with any of my knives. Were I in a morbid state wishing to off myself with any knife in the drawer it would be a two person job. Me to hold the blade to my wrist and a second extremely determined person willing to lean on it- for a really long time. VLH got me a lovely set of knives for Hanukah, in their very own block, knowing there isn't an inch of space in that drawer for so much as a paring knife. There is, however, one small space in that drawer, the space where soup spoons should be.

The soup spoon space holds just two spoons- one long handled iced tea spoon my ex-roommate Camille left in lieu of three months rent and a big silver serving spoon someone left one Thanksgiving- I just don't know who-or I'd give it back. I know full well somewhere in the world there is an old-school felt-lined silverware box with a slot waiting for it. I pause for a second's guilt, then move on- this was not the piece of minutiae that would distract me tonight. Staring into the pathetic little spoonless void - I thought of China.

My sister and I loved spoons- specifically soup spoons, when we were about 4 years old. Not for eating- soup spoons were too big to fit in our mouths and held just enough liquid that if we did try using one we were guaranteed a baptism with every spoonful. Cindee and I liked soup spoons for digging.

I guess most kids had shovels- little plastic ones, probably purchased with a bucket for the beach. We didn't. I doubt at four years old that we felt the lack- but even given the choice I am certain we would have picked a nice hefty spoon with an ornate curliqued handle over some flimsy store-bought digging implement. We had serious plans. We had seen it on television- I am pretty sure inspired by Rocky and Bullwinkle or Mr. Magoo or perhaps Peabody and his boy Sherman- we wanted to dig to China.

We would have to beg my grandmother for spoons. It wasn't that she would deny us anything. When it came to my sister and I "no" just wasn't in her vocabulary. She loved us that much. As our primary caregiver she had to choose between ten minutes to herself of peace and quiet and never seeing her silverware again. You see, while we were big on begging, As twins we had the added advantage of two against one- tiny eyes welling up with tears, each of us with two handfuls of her housedress hem we could beg for all we were worth. The problem was we NEVER brought the spoons back. Alas, she was putty in our hands. Inevitably she chose a few precious moments of silence and the joy she felt seeing us run laughing out the door and down the stairs to the 10 x 10 cement box that was our front yard. Later on she'd send my grandfather out, usually after dark, flashlight in hand muttering to himself in Yiddish, to locate the missing flatware. Unfortumately he was only successful about half the time- but he inevitably bore the brunt of my grandmother's fussing when the silver remained missing. I can't remember her ever yelling at us- her point of view wasn't that we had lost the spoons so much as he did't find them.

I remember those afternoons so clearly-the feeling of kneeling on the inevitably hard packed earth (my grandmother could say "no" to us if it rained and the ground was damp- she believed with all her heart that if girl children sat on wet, cold ground it rendered them sterile- we didn't argue with this as her delivery of this news was as grave as the six-o'clock news and while we weren't quite sure what sterile was it sounded like something that would require a bath. We were against that on general principal. I remember the dry dusty smell of the soil as we broke it and the slight moistness underneath and the occasional half an earthworm that lay beneath the crusty top layer. Pebbles and hard bits of earth would cut into our knees and when switching to the more comfortable seated position we'd grind the dust into the seats of our shorts and allowed errant bits of earth to find their way under the elastic leg of our flowered cotton panties. We would Stanley to my Livingstone and we would sit and dig and talk as if there were no one else in the world. My sister was my travelling companion- her conviction just as strong as mine in our ability to get to China before our grandmother called us for supper. I don't remember what we talked about- it was a long time ago. I like to think we imagined what it was like on the other side of the world. With me ever the talker and my sister as my most avid listener- I am sure I spent the time telling her with absolute surety that we would have no trouble talking to the people we met in China- after all, we talked to the waiters at the Canton Chop Suey restaurant and they always brought us extra fortune cookies. I had a list of questions- Did duck sauce actually come from ducks? Were Chinese eyes slanted because they squinted at the TV as my grandmother suggested? Could I get one of those hats? The questions never really got answered but they wound their way into the air as dusk settled and we felt the weight of borrowed time knowing any moment my grandmother would call us in and the record for "5 more minute" reprieves was three before she'd threaten to wake my dad from his post-work pre-dinner nap to come and get us.

We would trudge up the stairs dragging our filthy Keds and toting more soil than we ever dug out of the yard in our ankle socks. More often than not my grandmother would undress us in the front alcove shaking the dirt from our clothes out the door and brushing the dirt that wasn't firmly adhered off our squirming naked bodies before herding us off for a bath a deux. We would only be persuaded to actually enter the tub with copious amounts of Mr. Bubble sprinkled in it creating mountains of foam- half of which would fly out of the tub when we two filthy explorers jumped in simultaneously to prevent one or the other of us from defecting. More than once I know my grandfather had to chase one soapy naked escapee from the tub while my grandmother kept a glaring eye on the twin that didn't quite make it out the door.

And after the bath we'd lie awake in bed- whispering- slipped between my grandmother's impossibly soft faded cotton sheets under her fluffy feather quilts. Planning new expeditions, finding answers to the impossible questions and promises of new adventures just past the next morning's early light. We'd curl around each other and fall asleep with our breath warm in each other's ear, nestled like silver in a drawer. The world was a simple place where I could be happy. I had a spoon.