I didn’t know I was sensitive about bowls until I lost two in a row to accident. Breakable things break, dishes get dropped, nothing lasts forever. That philosophy works with glasses, plates, even the occasional beloved mug, but I feel the loss of these stupid bowls.

We’re not talking mass-produced items, rather pottery—bowls that were shaped by hands, baked, glazed, baked again. I fall in love with glazes, with bowls that are approximately the size of two cupped hands. These bowls are intimate, quirky. We have conversations over breakfast, for it is usually breakfast when I use them. This morning I looked in the cupboard and found no one I wanted to talk to, so I had toast instead of yogurt and/or cereal, with blueberries. Blueberries don’t stay on toast.

A museum in Portland, Oregon is hosting an exhibit: “Object Focus: The Bowl.” With objects ranging from Tibetan singing bowls to a chrome ice bucket. I read about it in the Styles section of the NYT. There’s a photo of a ceramic baking bowl that I find riveting. It’s plain, grayish white, with a blue strip just under the rim. A well-used domestic bowl. The article goes on about how bowls are “supporting players in the narrative of other objects.” What’s that supposed to mean? A bowl is NOT “something defined largely by the void at its center…” A bowl is NOT about “the poetry of banality.” Please. Don’t make me go to Portland and smack you.

A bowl contains. When it is empty, the bowl speaks to us of possibility, of nourishment and connection. When I eat from a hand-made bowl, I hold it in my hand; I regard the food and engage in what is for me an aesthetic experience. The bowl soothes and calms my mind. IT MAKES ME HAPPY.

Looks like I’m going on a search this weekend. A bowl in the hand being devoutly wished.

So. Yesterday my husband asked me about facials. “Um, what happens, what’s it like,” he asked unsuspectingly. Hm. We’re not really allowed to provide that information. I mean, who would believe that someone would submit themselves to that? Apart from the EXTREME moisturizing (the good part), there’s other stuff involving hot wax and steam and tweezers moving at high speed. My aestetician, Annemarie, is Rumanian. Very good. Much calmer since Obama won the election. It was pretty iffy there for a while, not calming the way these visit are supposed to be. I was pretty tense for the duration. Never mind. It’s all good. Her friends in Rumania no longer think we’re a nation of narcissistic, deluded psychopaths. In spite of the world recession, they’re feeling much calmer, too. They’ve put their guns back in the bedside table. S.(plural) When Annemarie smiles, I smile. And I have more eyebrow, as well. Um, if you know who I’m talking about, no more chocolate, please. Annemarie is over the top with chocolate this year, thanks. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Women of “a certain age” have to have facials. It’s not funny. I know you’re out there. so I shall say no more. Bottom line = with facials, life is elastic; one can smile and look cautiously optimistic, as after an especially rewarding yoga session. Without facials? Don’t go there. Don’t open the door. If they run out of moisturizer, I’m going for blood.

Spent the better part of the week up in Estes Park, trekking through the National Forest, admiring the turning of aspen leaves, listening to the bugling of elk, and gazing on a sky full of stars. The hard part was doing it all with 21 kids, my gifted students, who love a life lived loud. I mean, they’re fine kids, full of curiosity and in love with Nature, but I did feel outnumbered. There were three other adults with me, 2 young women whose combined ages are still 12 years short of mine. And Ryan, the experiential instructor who MIGHT be 30. Who spends all his free time climbing challenging rock faces. He would look at me with compassionate curiosity whenever I’d stop along the trail and gasp for air. Or wince and whimper about my knees. He was patient and kind.