Cutting boards and paper filters for coffee: Associations between things and people

I have strong associations between simple activities or objects and particular people. When I'm using a cutting board, I often think of my late mother-in-law and a conversation I had with her about "Brettschneiden" and "Handschneiden" (cutting vegetables on a board or in one's hand). When I make get out the filter paper to make coffee, I often think of my professor and friend John Felstiner, translator of Pablo Neruda and Paul Celan: in the summer of 1990, I did some housesitting for him, and when he explained the coffee maker to me, I was surprised that he had brown filter papers – it was the first time I had seen them. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 22 August 2021)