THE PURPLE BOWL

We didn’t have much growing up, but we did have a purple bowl!

It sat right in the center of Mama’s kitchen table like it owned the place, long and oval, deep as a secret, resting on four tiny glass feet that always made me nervous. It glowed a fluorescent purple you could spot from two rooms away. And if the light hit it just right, greens and blues shimmered across it like spilled gasoline on pavement, a quiet kind of magic in a house that didn’t see much sparkle.

Every night after Mama’s shift at the Kettle Restaurant, she’d come home smelling like coffee, fried eggs, and the kind of tiredness that sticks to your bones. She’d tuck her folded dollar bills into an envelope we weren’t supposed to touch, then she’d pour every last coin into that bowl. The sound of it rattling around told you everything you needed to know about how her night went.

Some nights, the clink-clink-clink was bold and bright, like applause.

Other nights, it barely whispered.

Either way, we never touched the bills.

But those coins?
Those coins fed us.

Every morning before school, we’d grab a handful, quarters if we were lucky, nickels and dimes if we weren’t, and march down to the bus stop with pockets full of possibility. Lunch money. Emergency snacks. Bubble gum that lasted half a recess. Those coins were freedom.

And on the days Mama was gone longer than expected, when the pantry held nothing but condiments and hope, we’d tiptoe to that purple bowl and ration out silver like it was gold. We pretended the pennies didn’t count. It wasn’t personal. Pennies were just… slow.

Eventually, the silver ran dry, and the pennies sat there like the last kids picked for kickball. So, Mama stopped at the bank and came home with stacks of empty paper tubes.

“Fifty to a roll,” she said, dropping them on the table. “Don’t let ’em fall out. Fold the ends tight.”

Lord, you’d think she’d handed us the keys to the U.S. Treasury.

We counted those pennies with military precision.
50-by-50.
Blocking the end with a finger.
Holding our breath until the rim reached the top.
Folding the ends like we were sealing treasure.

It took forever.

But something happened while we worked:

We learned that 50 pennies make a roll that equaled $.50.
We learned that 40 nickels do too, $2.00.
We learned 50 dimes adding up to $5.00 in a snap.
We learned 40 quarters feel like wealth in your palm because that’s $10!
We learned math without flash cards.
We learned patience without worksheets.

And we learned that responsibility has weight…
especially in your pockets.

We’d strut down to the corner store with our copper bounty, drop those penny rolls on the counter with pride, and wait for the cashier to marvel at our brilliance.

Instead, she sighed. Rolled her eyes. Tapped her nails like we’d personally offended her schedule.

We couldn’t understand it.

Didn’t she see the work?
The counting?
The folding?
The excitement?
Didn’t she feel the weight of this wealth?

We walked out disappointed every time.

And here’s the truth I didn’t have words for back then:

Some people will never know the weight of what you carried to the counter.

They’ll never understand how long you saved, how carefully you counted, how tightly you folded the ends to keep your hope from falling out.

They’ll sigh anyway.

They’ll prefer bills.
Or fiction.
Or a different genre altogether.

And today, as a writer, I understand pennies in a brand-new way.

I pour my heart into pages.
I stack chapters like rolls of copper.
I tuck the ends, polish the message, and step to the counter feeling rich with purpose.

And sometimes… the world sighs.

Not because my story isn’t valuable.

But because some people just don’t like pennies.
Or memoirs.
Or truth told in first-person past tense.

Now, folks tell you to develop thick skin, to toughen up, shrug it off, pretend you don’t feel it.

But thick skin numbs everything.
It keeps out the hurt… and the growth.

So instead, I’m learning to absorb it:

To feel the weight of rejection, turn it in the light, and see how it shimmers, just like that bowl. To learn from it. To use it. To write again with better words and deeper purpose.

Because pennies add up.
Small things matter.
And just because someone prefers dollars…

…doesn’t make your copper any less valuable.

And to this very day?
I can still tell you exactly how many coins go in every single roll.

Which is impressive…
considering I haven’t seen change since 1998.