I bought this bowl the very week I moved to Cambridge seven years ago. One week out of college, and I had secured a technical writing job at a Cam
bridge software company and moved into a tiny studio in Harvard Square… 300 square feet, but I didn’t have much.
The studio was $950 a month, and I spent most of my graduation money on my deposit and first month’s rent. I didn’t have a bed or a couch, so I bought a futon. No dresser, so I assembled a system of cardboard boxes. No desk, so I put my desktop on the floor and typed while propped up on my elbows, laying on my stomach, ruining my lower back.
Moving in, I didn’t have any kitchen ware except for coffee cups. I turned the pantry shelves into a bookcase. I had a saucepot for pasta, a frying pan for eggs, a coffeemaker, some glasses, and a single matching ceramic plate and bowl. You can’t tell from the picture on the right, but on a relative scale of quality, the bowl and plate were the nicest things I owned.
All of the practical, daily-usage possessions from that tiny studio have disappeared during these seven years of continual material upgrade except for a Denny’s coffee mug, a stapler, and the ceramic bowl and plate. And now the bowl is gone. I rested it on the ledge of the sink for a second and BOOM (can’t wait to have a kitchen counter). So I will head to Natick with my only ceramic plate as a remembrance of my salad days, when I was green in judgment, cold in blood.
