The summer before college felt like someone had pressed pause and fast-forward at the same time. Everything was slow and golden, and yet every single moment felt like it was slipping through my fingers. One day, a week before I left for college, I found myself walking through my hometown’s art show, the Art and Big Fork Festival in Evanston. White tents lined the streets, live music drifted from a corner stage, and the air was heavy with the combination of the lake breeze and warm sunshine.
I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, I just needed to breathe and do something that wasn’t packing, planning or saying yet another goodbye. That’s when I saw it, a small ceramic plate shaped like half an avocado, complete with the little dip in the middle for the pit. The small business artist had given it a soft green glaze with just the right shine when the sun catches it. It made me smile instantly. It was silly. It was small. And for some reason, I couldn’t stop thinking about a ceramic plate as I wandered through the other booths.
So, I went back for it.
I bought that avocado plate with the kind of quiet certainty that felt rare for a period where everything else in my life was about to change. It cost just enough to make me hesitate, but not enough to stop me. Wrapped carefully in paper, like it was made of something more than clay.
That plate came with me to college. It didn’t really match anything in my dorm, and it didn’t serve any real purpose besides holding my pairs of earrings, varying for the occasion. Whenever I placed something in that plate, it reminded me of who I was the summer before everything shifted. Reminded me of the girl just wandering at an art festival, unsure of the future but ready for change.
Now, as I am wrapping up my freshman year, that plate still sits by my window. It’s a little chipped on one side when I dropped it (oops). The glaze is slightly faded, but I love it even more now. Now, it’s not just an avocado plate, but a time capsule of my freshman year. A soft, quiet reminder that in the middle of big changes, small, lovely things can still find you.
I think that we as a society underestimate the power of little objects like that– how they can hold entire summers, memories or feelings that words don’t quite pin down. The avocado doesn’t just belong to my room, but a version of me that I’m still growing from. And that’s the kind of thing I want to keep close.
It turns out, the best souvenirs aren’t always flashy or expensive. Sometimes they are just clay and glaze, shaped like a food, bought on a warm sunny day when you needed a reminder that you’re allowed to hold onto something small and sweet, even when everything else feels so big.