The Good Plates

By Bernadette A. Moyer

We are cleaning out our house and making room, making room for home improvements and new spaces and freshening up through paint, projects and lightening our load. We have carted boxes of clothing and books and other donations to the needy. Some furniture of more than 20 years didn’t make the cut and went curbside or to a friend’s house.

It was time and it is amazing the stuff that you collect with a lifetime. Some things were brought here from our past and many things were collected in our 21 years living in our home.

In our dining room we have a China cabinet with real porcelain china collected from our ancestors, they are family heirlooms in classic white with gold and silver trim. These plates seldom get used except maybe at Christmas. I am okay with that because I like them but I wouldn’t say that they make me smile.

However, in our large eat-in kitchen was the first piece of furniture we brought into our home. It was an antique cabinet with a large plate rack and shelves on top. For many years on my birthday and for Christmas and other holidays my husband would purchase pieces of the Pistoulet collection from Pfaltzgraff. 

Sometimes I would receive 4 dinner plates or salad plates, maybe the serving dishes and accessory pieces. This collection was well suited for the colors of our kitchen and those plates were showcased on that plate rack for more than a decade. On occasion if I had a friend over for lunch or dinner I would use them. They are bright in green, orange, and yellow and blue. They make me happy just seeing them.  

Our everyday plates and dishes were stored in the kitchen cabinet. Those plates were the heavy hitters and weathered 3-kids and 2-adults constantly using them. For as long as we had them they held up and still looked good with just a few chipped plates.

Last week I looked at the collection of plates, that cabinet had to go, it was worn and dated and took up much space. Taking it out meant the whole Pistoulet collection no longer had a home. Then it occurred to me, what am I waiting for? I am going to die one day and I seldom if ever use and enjoy my favorite plates and dishes. The time to use them is now!

The time to live our life and to enjoy our life is right here and right now.

What are we waiting for? What are we saving for, to use, on what, a better day? The time is now! The time to live and to enjoy everything we have is right here and right now. The old plates found a new home with a bachelor friend who has just a few plates and dishes. He loved receiving them.

Me, I couldn’t be happier using my brightly colored Pistoulet plates. They are happy and represent me, as they are full of life and full of color. No one else was going to appreciate them after I am gone the way that I am appreciating them right now. What on earth was I saving them for …?

The Secrets of Pistoulet

“The earth gives us food to nourish our bodies and we prepare the food with love to feed our souls and we serve it with compassion to make us whole.”  --- Le Tresor of Pistoulet