Hanging out in Mama’s kitchen with Carole King and James Taylor, my hands were deep into the large yellow Pyrex bowl, mixing up a meatloaf like I’ve done hundreds of times before. Rings off, my fingers methodically squeeze and turn ground beef, chopped onions, bread crumbs, egg, parsley, salt, pepper, Worcestershire sauce and ketchup. Cooking at Mama’s… there’s something about using this old bowl, her heavy pots and pans, the beat up metal measuring spoons that brings me back to the days when we three Fredricksen girls would come home from school to find meat thawing on the counter and a recipe; the days of feathered hair and fighting with my sisters over the tethered to the wall rotary dial telephone. By the time I was in 7th grade, I didn’t need the recipe cards anymore, but I sure wish I had them- Mama’s fancy-scripted secrets for chicken and rice with mushroom soup, chop suey, sunshine chicken, meatloaf…
My thoughts snapped back from the early 80’s when Bill Withers came along to spice things up, “My friends feel its their appointed duty…” Volume way up, Mama came into the kitchen joining me with her signature funky dance moves. How I love our short spontaneous dance parties! Music has always moved my mom. It still lights her up. Alzheimer’s cannot steal that spark. This jam over, she returned to her game of solitaire and I to my meatloaf.
I asked her right then if I could have that yellow bowl. It reminds me of the good, the bad and even the brokenness of this place where I grew up. Three days later, it came to live with me in Rhode Island. That was the beginning. My Yellow Bowl Love project began 1,078 days ago. Yellow Bowl Love is comfort. It is nostalgia. It is taking time. It is care.
