How I got my pot

Rapid KL had just launched their brand-new red-white buses and the old grey-blue Intrakota buses were on their tired way out. School holidays were coming. I was sitting in one of the new buses with Kok Onn. Sometime in between bus stops, we decided to go camping and got my brother to join us. Monday, bus ride. Thursday packing. Friday, camping. I remember we needed a pot. So I took one from the storeroom. An old, unused one. Sitting on the shelf. Out of reach unless you used a ladder. I thought it was retired and unwanted, fine for the rough and tumble of camping.

The pot was light blue because of the enamel coating, with a dark blue rim and a semicircular wire handle. Looks like the kind of pot a grandmother would use to boil soup. Especially the spicy Chinese New Year “Leftovers Soup” with all the pickled vege and chicken and duck leftovers. The kind of soup that sits in old, cobwebbed kitchens and bubbles slowly for hours. That kind of soup. That kind of pot.

Before we  went to the campsite, we stopped outside the stall at the rocky swimming pool. The lady at the stall asked us how many days. Three, we said.  That’s very little baggage for three days, are you sure? she said.

If, somehow, it were the now me then, I would answer “That’s a very interesting observation. Hmmm…maybe we should see if we should get some extra supplies to supplant everything we forgot. Which is almost everything”.

But I was the then me then. So I said we’ll manage. She looked at our little blue pot. Wow that’s a nice pot she said. In Cantonese: “Leng Pou”. She was practically singing the praises of that old enamel pot. She said we should be careful with it, because it would chip easily. She was surprised our parents had let us use it. It was worth something. It was valuable. And why were we bringing it camping? Into the jungle?

Why our short exchange had such a profound effect on me is hard to say. I guess that’s the power of authority. Maybe because she knew utensils well, she could say with certainty which ones were valuable or not. Before that, the pot would look kinda at home if it sat there in the mud, or half buried in the leaf litter. Perhaps if it were chipped a bit, I wouldn’t mind. But now, it had an aura all of its own. A light blue haze seemed to frame it from the dull brown and mottled green of the forest background. Yes, if you close your eyes, you too can hear the shimmering music that accompanies such visions. Or is that the Hallelujah chorus?

My boss in FES often refers to herself as a cracked pot. Perhaps in reference to the fable of the cracked pot that watered the flowers along the path. Perhaps an allusion to her quirky sense of humour, hence “crack pot”. Who knows? But I think after long years in God’s service, she knows the truth more than many others that we are used by God despite our ourselves. Despite us being too young, too old, retired, not useful, sinful, arrogant, angry, insolent. God, like the lady, names us as useful and valuable even unto His purposes. Just when we find it hard to see that in ourselves. Just when we think we are no different from the mud and debris. I’m finding that more and more each day, both the sense of unworthiness and yet the grace from Him to be part of His plan.

Anyway, we left Our Lady of the Light Blue Enamel Pot to sell the rest of her nasi lemak and headed off on our trip. I might as well have been carrying a Ming vase into the jungle with me. We were lazy alright at that camp, but there was always a sideways glance in the pot’s direction, just to be sure. It rained terribly one night, and we huddled inside the dripping tent, with one sleeping bag between the three of us, miserable until we finally fell asleep. In the morning, I peeked out into the wetness to be sure the light blue pot had not run off in the rain.

By mid-morning of the third day, we decided enough was enough. There’s a maximum number of hours you can possibly sleep in three days. And we had reached that point. Hmm, probably the day before actually, but we always transcend our abilities. We packed up. Or stuffed everything back into our bags. Means the same at that camp. I hugged the pot in my arms and we trekked out to catch the bus back to Pudu and from there to catch the LRT back home. I put the pot back safely in its shelf and soon after bought a cheapo aluminum pot that could be dented and scratched and thrown about. Sometimes a pot should be a pot.

And that is how I got my pot.