Bowls

What was it with Aunt Deanie and bowls? Most of the time she ate out of a bowl and she made me do the same. They were very pretty bowls, but bowls all the same. Good thing I am not one of those “oh no my peas touched my cornbread!” kinda folks because by about midway through dinner you couldn’t tell where your peas ended and your cornbread began.

Turning on the faucet to wash your hands at Aunt Deanie’s was a no no. Every morning Aunt Deanie filled her big blue bowl, which I now proudly have on display, with water. She then placed the bowl and a bar of soap on a towel that she had laid on the counter. This setup served as the hand washing station and the water was not to be changed until she deemed the water “dirty.” Normally the water wasn’t “dirty” until late in the afternoon.  

I loved washing my hands in the bowl. Of course I now wonder just how “clean” my hands actually were when finished washing.

After Aunt died, at age 93 (she had appendicitis and would not let the doctors do anything about it), we found little bowls of buttons, bowls of nails, bowls filled with sewing needles, bowls of keys to who knows what and bowls filled with little doohickeys and thing-a-ma-bobs. Like most of her generation, she was a saver. After all, who knows when you might need a bowl full of needles?

Last week, my girls and I, as well as one of my nieces, put some new flowers on Aunt Deanies grave. As we walked by her Grandparent’s graves and then her parents’ graves; I thought about a very special bowl. I had been using this dense, homemade, concrete bowl as garden décor. There in the cemetery I recollected upon the bowl and what Aunt Deanie had told me about it. Aunt Deanie said that her mother made it and it was the only thing left that that really reminded Deanie of her Mom. Aunt Deanie picked up the bowl and with tears in her eyes placed her hands inside the indentions made by her mother’s hands.

Aunt Deanie used this bowl to water her chickens. Long after the chickens were all gone, the bowl continued to rest under the spigot. I don’t know if the bowl was kept outside because it evoked too many emotions or if was simply left there in case it were ever needed again to be used as a watering bowl.

I can tell you that the bowl is no longer in my flower bed, but now sits in my China cabinet among much daintier and delicate pieces. Although the bowl is definitely not China; it is, to me, one of my most valuable pieces. It now stands as a reminder of the little things that make life…..wonderfully weird and simply grand, like family (yes some of you are big weirdos and that’s why I Iove you!), bowls and even mushy cornbread.