A Box of Jars

A top-down view of a cardboard box filled with vintage glass jars, including clear wire-bail mason jars with rusty metal clamps and several upright Ball canning jars with silver and gold lids, in a Greensboro, North Carolina home.

Just a box of jars.

When I was growing up, my grandparents lived in the house my parents live in now. What is now my parents’ bedroom was my grandmother’s stock room, where she stored goods she canned and the Stanley home products she sold. There were also fabric scraps and assorted other quilting and sewing supplies. One advantage of being close to my parents, who live in a house where so many vegetables were pickled and/or canned, is access to beautiful old jars. We brought a box back today with jars we’ll clean and fill with dried goods, sundries, and whatnots.

dawnatella

Dawn Shepherd is a writer, a professor emeritus of writing studies, and an enthusiastic amateur of many things. After stepping away from higher education in 2025 to pursue a cross-country van journey and travels through Spain, she is currently exploring the art of the deliberate return. Through dispatches, sketches, and snapshots, she documents the magic of everyday life. She lives in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she’s figuring it all out. Probably. Maybe.

https://thedawnatellaedit.com
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