Palace of Fine Arts by Justin Owens--12601037234_afd3692d5d_b.jpg

Of Earliest Memories, Log Cabin Syrup Bottles and Acceptance …

Palace of Fine Arts by  Justin Owens--12601037234_afd3692d5d_b.jpg
“Palace of Fine Arts”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

by Justin Owens

My earliest memory is of interacting with my mother. I was around three or four years old and presented my mother a flower that I had placed in a glass Log Cabin syrup bottle.

My mother had been standing to the kitchen sink. She was washing dishes.

I had spent the last half hour to forty-five minutes scraping the front and back labels from the Log Cabin Bottle as I held the glass bottle under the spigot of cold water and then once clean and clear of paper searching for just the right flower to place in the bottle that I would present to my mother.

The glass Log Cabin Bottle, with the half-squares of diamonds etched in its sides was to be my vase, the yellow daffodil my ultimate gift to my mother.

I approached her standing to the kitchen sink, she washing the last of the breakfast dishes, and presented her my creation. Knitting her brows that stood just above the rim of her eye glasses she said, “You’ve been in my flowers.”

I had plucked the daffodil from a row she had planted on the other side of the house inches beyond the front porch.

The kitchen was on the back of the house, the spigot from which the stream of water ran and underneath which I held the Log Cabin Bottle cleaning it of the label extended from the side of the house below the window to the kitchen sink.

I had worked outside the house to clean the bottle while my mother, inside, had washed dishes. The two had stood but inches apart, only the wall between separating us, mother and daughter.

You’ve also been digging in the trash … again,” my mother added when observing the Log Cabin Bottle. “How may times have I told you not to play in the trash?”

I don’t remember playing in the trash that much. Then again, I did like to pull item from it, things she had thrown out and that I perceived, imagined, could be transformed, through my creativity, into something useful.

Useful.

I wanted to feel useful to my mother.

In later years and throughout my childhood I was always seeking ways in which she would see me as such.

I did not feel useful nor of any assistance on the morning I presented her the daffodil in the glass Log Cabin Bottle.

That morning I had been looking for love and acceptance.

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My earliest memory is of interacting with my mother. I was around three or four years old and presented my mother a flower that I had placed in a glass Log Cabin syrup bottle.

My mother had been standing to the kitchen sink. She was washing dishes.

I had spent the last half hour to forty-five minutes scraping the front and back labels from the Log Cabin Bottle as I held the glass bottle under the spigot of cold water and then once clean and clear of paper searching for just the right flower to place in the bottle that I would present to my mother.

The glass Log Cabin Bottle, with the half-squares of diamonds etched in its sides was to be my vase, the yellow daffodil my ultimate gift to my mother.

I approached her standing to the kitchen sink, she washing the last of the breakfast dishes, and presented her my creation. Knitting her brows that stood just above the rim of her eye glasses she said, “You’ve been in my flowers.”

I had plucked the daffodil from a row she had planted on the other side of the house inches beyond the front porch.

The kitchen was on the back of the house, the spigot from which the stream of water ran and underneath which I held the Log Cabin Bottle cleaning it of the label extended from the side of the house below the window to the kitchen sink.

I had worked outside the house to clean the bottle while my mother, inside, had washed dishes. The two had stood but inches apart, only the wall between separating us, mother and daughter.

You’ve also been digging in the trash … again,” my mother added when observing the Log Cabin Bottle. “How may times have I told you not to play in the trash?”

I don’t remember playing in the trash that much. Then again, I did like to pull item from it, things she had thrown out and that I perceived, imagined, could be transformed, through my creativity, into something useful.

Useful.

I wanted to feel useful to my mother.

In later years and throughout my childhood I was always seeking ways in which she would see me as such.

I did not feel useful nor of any assistance on the morning I presented her the daffodil in the glass Log Cabin Bottle.

That morning I had been looking for love and acceptance.

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