Broken Plates

The curse of persuasive speaking.

I have this crazy Aunt that I’m certain has a cunning plan to commandeer my favourite dinner plate.
She is an artist.
A dreamer.
A creator.
She has this fancy machine that can turn crockery into gorgeous jewellery.

Exhibit A.

We must keep her out of my kitchen AT ALL COSTS.

Why?
Because my favourite dinner plate that I found in an op shop a few years back, has a crack in it. It’s the perfect victim for her heartless creations.

Exhibit B.

She’s Cruella de Vil.
And my plate is a poor innocent Dalmatian who does not want to be a coat.

At the end of the day, we both have strong dreams for my plate, backed with solid values on both sides.

---

My Dad used to have this hat collection that he had been building over many years.
There were hats he received with his football membership, hats the tractor manufacturers gave him, hats the wire manufacturers gave him...
Brown hats and blue hats and old hats and new hats.
He loved his hat collection.

A few years ago, my sisters and I were clearing out and redecorating my parents’ bedroom.
'The hats have to go,' we told him.
He was reluctant, but we were at least three sisters strong. We ended up compromising with a significant cull and a handful of his favourite ones to keep.

The hat cull haunts me.
I wake up sweating in the middle of the night thinking, ‘I have no idea what those hats meant to my Dad.’

To me, they were unnecessary clutter. But they weren’t mine. They were his.
What did those hats mean to him?
Perhaps they were connections to all the people he’d met in his career as a fencing contractor and farmer.
Perhaps they were memories.
Perhaps they were versions of himself he was getting to know.

AND. I. RUTHLESSLY. CULLED. THEM.

Haunted.

Sometimes I wonder if normal people wake up in a cold sweat over hats.

But I know it’s something deeper.
It’s the tension of change.

The exciting forward moving energy of growth, uncomfortably entwined with the pain of regret.

It’s realising how many of my past decisions (however well meaning) were mistakes.
All the moments where I thought my perspective was the right one.
All the moments I was too powerful.
My words - too compelling. Too convincing. So convincing that I fooled myself into thinking my idea was the only one worth honouring.
The arguments I won with my linguistic and argumentative prowess…that steam rolled the person in front of me, and the values that mattered to them. Relegating them to second place. My goal successful. My competitor left mourning their own dreams and ideas.

They’re a gift, these words.
And they’re often a curse.

I mistook my commanding nature as correctness.
If I won, it was because I was right…right? Wrong.
I was a starry eyed student on my first day of law school, naive to the reality that you’re not always arguing for truth and justice. Just the story you’ve been handed.

And so I am PAINFULLY SLOWLY learning to soften.
To listen.
To let somebody else’s words paint beautiful images in my imagination.
To be open to possibilities that weren’t born of my own mind.
To give air time to other voices. To ideas that rival my own.

So will I give my Aunty my favourite dinner plate?
Will I trust her vision?
Allow her dream to take flight and offer her creative soul exciting new material?

No.
Absolutely not.
It’s my plate.
It’s my favourite plate.

NOT TODAY, CRUELLA!!!

I warned you the transformation was slow.
The river runs deep.
Change is a slippery fish.
I’m only human.

I’m doing the persuasive words thing again.
But you know what? I’m a reasonably tired nursing Mother and there’s a real vulnerability there, so if you just keep chipping away, I’m sure I’ll eventually crumble.

Good luck and may the odds be ever in your favour, you vintage plate destroying monster dearest Aunt.

x
Lysette