Selection 17 My Mother's Blue Bowl

Front 1

barrack

Back 1

an improvised hut a building or group of buildings from housing soldiers

A gray, decaying, too small barrack meant to house the itinerant tenant workers on a prosperous white man's farm.

Front 2

cauldron

Back 2

a large kettle or boiler

For the blue bowl especially was a cauldron of memories.

Front 3

divestiture

Back 3

to disencumber or rid of something unwanted

Her move into the projects-the best house poor black people in the south ever had, she would occasionally declare, even as my father struggle to adjust to the cramped rooms and hard, unforgiving qualities of brick-was, I now understand, a step in the direction of divestiture, lightening her load, permitting her worldly possessions to dwindle in significance and, well before she herself would turn to spirit, roll away from her.

Front 4

flourished

Back 4

to grow vigorously;succeed;thrive; prosper

There her gardens flourished in spite of the shade, as did her youngest daughter, for whom she sacrificed her life doing hard labor in someone else's house, in order to afford peace and prettiness for her child, to whose grateful embrace she returned each night.

Front 5

frigidity

Back 5

extremely cold; without heat or warmth

during the cold weather can people are leaving frigidity outside.

Front 6

itinerant

Back 6

travels from place to place

a gray, decaying, too small barrack meant to house the itinerant tenant workers on a prosperous white man's farm

Front 7

marveled

Back 7

wonderful things

each time I visited her I marveled at the modesty of her desires.

Front 8

musings

Back 8

reflection

those days when to visit her was to be drawn into a serene cocoon of memories and present-day musings and to rest there, in temporary retreat from the rest of the world, as if still an infant, nodding and secure at her breast.

Front 9

rapaciously

Back 9

greedy or grasping; voracious

The blue bowl stood there, seemingly full forever, no matter how deeply or rapaciously we dipped, as if it had no bottom.

Front 10

serene

Back 10

not disturbed or trouble; calm, peaceful, tranquil, ect.

those days when to visit her was to be drawn into a serene cocoon of memories and present-day musings and to rest there, in temporary retreat from the rest of the world, as if still an infant, nodding and secure at her breast.

Front 11

solace

Back 11

an easing of grief, loneliness, discomfort,ect

I took solace in the fact that it was at least hugged by spacious lawn on one side, and by forest, out the back door, and that it's isolated position at the end of the street meant she would have a measure of privacy.