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Broken Bowl, Clearing House
When I was married, my husband loved this particular kind of stoneware — Louisville Stoneware. It was strong, sturdy, and beautiful. It was also very expensive, as most hand-crafted, quality things are, so we would only buy one bowl at a time. When our marriage ended, he left all the Louisville Stoneware behind. I cleared out most of the dishes, but kept those bowls because they were strong, sturdy, and beautiful.
Yesterday, I made myself a bowl of soup in one of those bowls. As I brought the bowl to the sink to rinse it out, it cracked into two perfect halves. A clean break, right down the center. I held the two pieces of the bowl in my hands, thinking of all the last bits of detritus from my marriage that had broken and fallen away in the past five years.
The stacks of CDs that went out in the first house cleaning after he moved.
The spare bedroom furniture that made way for my massage studio.
The fancy china that I did not want to haul around anymore.
And along with these physical things, these touchable objects, there were mountains of emotional debris that lived in and sometimes choked my spirit. All the long-held beliefs about my value as a human being, about my ability to be in a loving relationship.