What I am passionate about in this picture is the
mesmerizing blue of the cobalt goblets. As a child,
I would put a glass to my face and stare at my
surroundings through the deep blue color and pretend
that I was deep under water. A way to hide in plain view,
if you will, for a lone child in a family of many adults.
I pretty much had to make my own amusements.

Then, too, the memory of a full set of these glasses
gracing my grandmother’s Sunday dinner table brings
me an almost visceral nostalgia for my childhood in St. Petersburg, my grandmother, and her kitchen. Holding her blue-gloved hand in church (actually, she was holding my hand to keep me from fidgeting) and seeing the sun lay color
from the stained glass windows across our laps. All that comes back to me from holding one of these cobalt goblets. A passionate yearning for the past, for my grandmother, holding hands in church, and getting lost in the deep blue.

These two goblets are the only survivors of the set, and they reside in the protective custody of my dear cousin Cathy, on display with the Delft plate in her Largo, Florida, home.