Charlotte Latvala: Bowl holds 20 years of family memories
I stood at the kitchen sink this morning, washing a ceramic bowl.
“How have I not broken this yet?” I marveled to myself as I turned the soapy treasure over in my hands, admiring its gentle earth and sand color palette. “After all these years, how is it intact?”
It was — well, is, because as of today I still haven’t broken it — a handmade bowl designed for holding berries. It’s got a repeating pattern of holes on the sides and bottom, so you can rinse the berries and the water will trickle out and — voila! — no soggy berries.
The holes also let air in, which I believe helps keep the berries fresh. (I’m not an expert on food storage, as a glimpse into the dark caverns of my pantry will confirm. And in my defense, there’s no law against keeping canned goods from 2015.)
Anyway, the berry bowl. It was a gift from a beloved aunt, purchased at an artisans’ marketplace in West Virginia. It’s not fancy, but it’s a one-of-a-kind, can’t-go-in-the-dishwasher piece. It has passed the Marie Kondo test again and again — not only does it bring me joy, it brings a plethora of warm and fuzzy memories.
Memories of time spent with my aunt, now the only living member of my mom’s generation in our family.
Memories of traveling to her house in Florida. Stopping in West Virginia four hours into the trip with a van full of restless children whose only thought is getting chocolate chip pancakes at the next Cracker Barrel, not browsing through stacks of breakable earthenware.
Memories of those same restless children gathering blueberries at a U-Pick farm when we visited my mom in Ohio. We went because I insisted we do something wholesome in the fresh country air. The Gameboy years had begun and I thought berry-picking was the antidote.
The fact that the bowl is still intact is something of a minor miracle. It has been handled, over and over again, by children. And by me, an adult with an almost superhuman ability to break things.
I look at something and it cracks — picture frames, dishes, iPhones. I’ve splintered wine glasses with a mere touch. I’ve ruined expensive pieces of clothing by simply washing them. (OK, does anyone actually read washing instructions?)
(I did not, however, shatter our TV some years ago. That was one of the children, Wii bowling, in the most dramatic incident ever to take place in our living room.)
I know someday I’m going to break the berry bowl. It’s inevitable. One day it will slip out from my soapy fingers and go hurtling into our hard ceramic sink and shatter into a hundred pieces.
And my heart will be broken because it will be squarely my fault, and I’ll realize I destroyed a sentimental object that holds 20 years of family history.
And I’ll be right. But on the other hand, it was a pain to hand wash that thing.
Charlotte is a columnist for The Times. You can reach her at charlottelatvala@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: Latvala: Bowl holds 20 years of family memories
