When I was a child, my mother constantly used a pink Pyrex bowl she had received as a wedding present. We used it as a mixing bowl, a salad bowl, and a pasta bowl. As we grew older and found "newer and better" bowls for her, we give them to her and she'd use them a few times. And then they would be relegated to the bowl cabinet and out would come the pink bowl again.
After 44 years, the paint is faded and scratched in places, but it is still in amazing shape. I've been thinking about the bowl a lot lately, and I know that someday I would like it.
Naturally, my desire for this bowl has little to do with its usefulness, although its multi-purposefulness would come in handy. Instead, I have the memories associated with it, those same memories that wash over me frequently. Happy times, sad times, angry times. The bowl seemed to be the center of our dinnertime, although I didn't realize it as a child.
I find myself missing those happier times. Maybe it's my age. Maybe it's my situation. I know that there were some wonderful times we had as a family, prior to moving from California.
Summers were spent at the pool. My mother was afraid of water, so she'd sit on the other side of the pool fence with her chair, her book, and her cool drink, watching us cavort in the pool with our friends. I'm sure today her behavior would be considered neglect, but in the 1970s, she wasn't the only mom sitting outside the fence. We ate salads galore during those hot summer months, often out of the pink bowl. I find myself making different salads as the days grow hot, replicating my childhood, just with fancier salads.
Winters in California were spent in the yard, playing soccer, riding bikes, tossing a baseball, and suppers, when my father was home, often consisted of pastas, stews, roasts, mostly served in the pink bowl. My mother liked to bake, and the pink bowl became a mixing bowl for chocolate chip cookies or, our favorite, peanut butter cookies. We'd stick our filthy hands into the bowl when she wasn't looking and scoop out some dough, popping it into our mouths, trying to look innocent.
Now, in my forties, the pink bowl symbolizes my mother and my youth. I don't want to seem greedy and ask my father for it, but I know one day it'll have a special spot in my own cabinet.
