The Blue Bowls
I was too young to remember the details, but I remember being in the kitchen while my grandma made macaroni, my grandpa's Yanni piano music playing somewhere in the background. We always ate the macaroni out of the blue bowls; you never needed to specify which blue bowls because they were practically a proper noun. The Blue Bowls.
They lived in Kansas and so did I. And then they lived in Colorado and so did I. But when they moved to North Carolina, I didn't follow.
Hot summer days soon brought my brother and myself out east, where the days spent with our grandparents felt like no time had passed at all. We had our feet in the sand and a cousin at our side and a road disappearing into endless deciduous forests; I was in their room one night when I looked around, realizing that no matter where they were, their room somehow always looked the same. There was the giant green bed frame that I've stared at during so many insomniac nights, the half-circle chair where I sat and gazed through the white curtains, the dresser with family photos propped next to the statue of a golfer. There was the shelf of books that I never grew tired of exploring and even the enormous bathtub was the same. Their house is a world all its own.
I woke up the next day and started to make macaroni for lunch. My grandma had taught me well, and I had my earbuds in to listen to my grandpa's Yanni music (downloaded straight from the 1993 disc). When I was done cooking, I reached into the cupboard to pull out The Blue Bowls.
My goal in life is to follow my grandparents' example. I won't buy myself a pair of Blue Bowls, though. I'll probably just steal theirs.
They lived in Kansas and so did I. And then they lived in Colorado and so did I. But when they moved to North Carolina, I didn't follow.
Hot summer days soon brought my brother and myself out east, where the days spent with our grandparents felt like no time had passed at all. We had our feet in the sand and a cousin at our side and a road disappearing into endless deciduous forests; I was in their room one night when I looked around, realizing that no matter where they were, their room somehow always looked the same. There was the giant green bed frame that I've stared at during so many insomniac nights, the half-circle chair where I sat and gazed through the white curtains, the dresser with family photos propped next to the statue of a golfer. There was the shelf of books that I never grew tired of exploring and even the enormous bathtub was the same. Their house is a world all its own.
I woke up the next day and started to make macaroni for lunch. My grandma had taught me well, and I had my earbuds in to listen to my grandpa's Yanni music (downloaded straight from the 1993 disc). When I was done cooking, I reached into the cupboard to pull out The Blue Bowls.
My goal in life is to follow my grandparents' example. I won't buy myself a pair of Blue Bowls, though. I'll probably just steal theirs.