bowls

I really like bowls.
I'm not sure why.
But I know that I choose to eat out of bowls a lot.
Salad.
Soup.
Cereal.
Yogurt.
Ice cream.
Applesauce.
Sometimes even a piece of a casserole.
Everything is contained. It keeps things neat and clean.
Bowls hold all sorts of food and all sorts of clutter in my house. There are the bowls in my cabinets and the bowls on my shelves and the bowls on my tables that collect mail and keys and other things. Easy, welcoming containers that allow me to sort and separate things.
Which is sort of a funny thing because the other time I use bowls is in cooking...and then they are usually used to mix things together. To bring a bunch of separate ingredients together in one place to be made into a wonderful concoction.
These simple objects - pieces of art and useful household items - are 100% versatile. And maybe that's really my attraction to bowls. They are wonderful contradictions. Useful when you choose for them to be; totally empty when you leave them be. They are pretty plain, even when they are ornate...not too many bells or whistles, usually...but every once in a while you find a really complex one. They are both sturdy and delicate. They can be boring and really interesting. They can hold it all together or make clear distinctions between things.
Sue Bender puts it pretty well in her book Everyday Sacred:

I heard a story about three bowls.
The first bowl is inverted, upside down, so that nothing can go into it. Anything poured into this bowl spills off.
The second bowl is right-side up, but stained and cracked and filled with debris. Anything put into this bowl gets polluted by the residue or leaks out through the cracks.
The third bowl is clean. Without cracks or holes, this bowl represents a state of mind ready to receive and hold whatever is poured into it.
Sometimes I am that first bowl, so busy being "productive" that I don't notice when the very thing I want presents itself. Sometimes I am the second bowl, with such a fierce judging voice that focuses on what's not working that I'm unable to see or appreciate all the things that are going well.
And sometimes, wonderful times, I am the third bowl, able to be present and absorbed in what I am doing, whatever it is.

I've been all three of those bowls Sue Bender talks about at different points in my life. Maybe that's it. In fact, I think if I were a piece of dishware, I'd want to be a bowl. Just like I'd want to be a dolphin if I were an animal. Or a daisy if I were a flower. Maybe I relate to bowls.