Ode : Tear-Water Tea, Mom, & Coltrane
Episode description
Owl At Home, by Arnold Lobel
Rachel Abramson
My mom often read me this book, Owl At Home, by Arnold Lobel, when I was a kid. It’s about an owl who lives alone in a big old house, and is often at home in his bathrobe and pajamas. Owl worries about the bumpy shadows that his knees make against the wall when he’s in bed, and he wants to know how to be in two places at once, so he doesn’t have to miss his upstairs when he’s downstairs, and miss his downstairs when he’s upstairs. My mom especially loved one of the chapters of the book, called “Tear-Water Tea,” where Owl takes time to cry into a teapot about things that are sad. As a kid this book disturbed me a little, but nevertheless, Tear-Water Tea became part of my personal vernacular for a certain kind of sadness, and a certain sort of intensity that is a very real part of both my mother and me. This is a tiny ode to my mom and Owl At Home.
Music = John Coltrane, “Acknowledgement.” Love Supreme. Impulse! Records, 1965.