Thoughts about a bowl
There is a stainless steel bowl in my cupboard. It was my mother's bowl, and as far back as I have memory, I have one of that bowl. It was her favorite and she used it for just about everything from mixing meatloaf to beating cake batter. She had other bowls of course, including a full set of Pyrex nesting bowls in yellow, green, red and blue. You can sometimes still find a set of these bowls at antique stores. I think my mother would faint if she saw the price of a set today. It would likely be more than her monthly mortgage payment was all those years ago. But for some reason, the stainless steel bowl was the one she always went to. I have no idea why.
After I set up my own house I seldom saw that bowl until after her death when it came to me. I'm not sure why that happened either. It was her bowl, and I still think of it as such, and now it lives in my cupboard but it's not really 'my' bowl. It's a bowl I use when my other ones are busy. Or dirty. It is not my first choice. 'My' bowl is an old pottery one, browny-gray in color with 2 cobalt blue bands around the rim. I bought that bowl at an estate sale many years ago. I love the way it looks, love the heft of it, love the size. I use it to proof bread dough, to mix pie crust, to marinate chicken and for almost every other thing one needs a bowl for in the kitchen.
It's interesting, and odd I think, to remember something that really belonged to another person after that person has left this life. My mother's bowl is just an inanimate object, but it lives on and my mother does not. I have no use for her bowl, and my children have no memories of it, but still I do not pack it up and take it to a resale shop as I often do with other things. My own bowl was obtained after my children had left to be on their own. It has no memories for them and unless I drop it will likely be here long after I am gone. I wonder what they will do with 'moms bowl' when they need to make these kinds of decisions.
I don't know where or when my mother got her bowl, and never knew where my own bowl came from originally. I wonder about the people who might have used those items before us. And continue to find it odd that these kinds of inanimate things survive long after the rest of us have gone.
After I set up my own house I seldom saw that bowl until after her death when it came to me. I'm not sure why that happened either. It was her bowl, and I still think of it as such, and now it lives in my cupboard but it's not really 'my' bowl. It's a bowl I use when my other ones are busy. Or dirty. It is not my first choice. 'My' bowl is an old pottery one, browny-gray in color with 2 cobalt blue bands around the rim. I bought that bowl at an estate sale many years ago. I love the way it looks, love the heft of it, love the size. I use it to proof bread dough, to mix pie crust, to marinate chicken and for almost every other thing one needs a bowl for in the kitchen.
It's interesting, and odd I think, to remember something that really belonged to another person after that person has left this life. My mother's bowl is just an inanimate object, but it lives on and my mother does not. I have no use for her bowl, and my children have no memories of it, but still I do not pack it up and take it to a resale shop as I often do with other things. My own bowl was obtained after my children had left to be on their own. It has no memories for them and unless I drop it will likely be here long after I am gone. I wonder what they will do with 'moms bowl' when they need to make these kinds of decisions.
I don't know where or when my mother got her bowl, and never knew where my own bowl came from originally. I wonder about the people who might have used those items before us. And continue to find it odd that these kinds of inanimate things survive long after the rest of us have gone.