Dishes

This is about closing a chapter and staring a new one.

Before I boxed these up I made sure they were all clean, carefully considering their future while conjuring images of their past.

What I brought with me to Chicago, a mismatched set though they may be – two sets really.

The newer ones are plastic in black and white and they are what I bought for myself when I was in university. Plastic: in case of late night antics. Deep and smooth, square with curved edges.

Funky.

For dining OR serving.

The older ones are more classic, rounded, and were bought while my family lived in a two –bedroom apartment in a complex off Fox Lonas Drive in the school district where I would go to high school. We ate off of them and my mother said they would be mine – that we would pack them away after we moved into a new house and ate off of the Pfaltzgraff again. These provided meals to us while my dad was healing from his brain surgery (I know.) and that Christmas that we were all sick with the flu. I’ve often thought of these as the “Countrywood” tableware, the name of our street those two years.

When I turned 17, my grandparents followed family tradition and gave me a hope chest. These were quickly packed away for the life I would start when I was an adult.

So when I came here, so did the hope chest and these.

And this week, with my boyfriend of 5 years, we decided to buy new as these were a little out-dated and have been chipping for the last year. A few mugs have been broken and are long gone.

So we are eating our meals from these now.

We started with a Thai dinner the day before Thanksgiving.