The ten litre jar

Many are the treasures of a long forgotten provisions room. They even go beyond the tens of three litre jars of jam one could find there.

Sometimes, you can find things saved in a ten litre jar!

Stored behind the door of the provisions room and away from prying eyes, my mom and I stumbled upon a mysterious ten litre jar. It looked well preserved and whatever was in it came in a dark yellow colour.

Honey? Vodka? Oil? We barely opened the well-sealed lid and we had our answer — home made oil. In an instant, an entire sunflower field was released into the room. A smell sealed for over ten years moved powerfully through the room and danced in front of our ecstatic noses.

My mom was determined to take the oil home, to the capital, about 230 kilometres away. But travelling on public transport with a ten litre oil jar, though admittedly a fun idea, did not seem all that practical. And so we agreed to pour the oil into big plastic bottles. In a Moldovan village, everything can creatively find its way into plastic bottles: oil, honey, vodka, wine, milk, gasoline and, why not, holy water.

Ten litre jars are also not uncommon in Moldova’s villages. They are great for pickles, sheep cheese, wine or vodka and many other eatable things we humans want to preserve in big quantities. Because we’re always preparing to live for the future.

We were just seconds into filling the first plastic bottle as the ten litre glass jar — filled to the brim with oil — slipped through my mom’s fingers and fell on the concrete floor. There was no holding on to it or saving it from the fall. The jar broke into pieces and the sunflower field spread across the room. Oil was everywhere. Under the wardrobe, under the fridge, under our feet. It was there to stay in the house.

We saved about one and a half litre of precious oil. What was a treasure of a decade old memory vanished under our feet in seconds. Old rugs came to the rescue as we cleaned the floor. The red painted concrete floor was shining and smelling heavenly. My mom, shaken and deeply saddened, did not say much on the way back. Once in a while, she sighed as she remembered the oil.

If even a jar of oil is unpredictable, why are we so eager to always live for the future?

All it takes sometimes in life is a matter of seconds.

Originally published at agingwits.tumblr.com.