Say It in the Kitchen

Someday I’ll stand barefoot in my own kitchen, and I will love every minute of it. I’ll dance around whisking brownie mix or stand by the counter and knead dough with flour on my chin. Music will be wafting through the air, intermingling with whatever I’ve just thrust into the oven. Somehow, I’ll always end up wearing black on the days I use the most flour, but I will eventually master cracking an egg with one hand. My fridge will be cluttered, but my eyes will be bright as I welcome imperfect people to an imperfect home. It is where we will grow.

Some kitchens have a fresh-out-of-the-box feeling. All the cupboards look the same, and it takes a couple of tries to find the coffee mugs. Others have a lived-in, things-on-the-counter-and-coffee-rings-on-the-table feel to them. I prefer the latter myself because you get a glimpse behind the curtain. When people are free to live out their imperfections and processes, they can grow. In some homes, people gravitate to the back porch or the living room, but I’ve always found solace in the kitchen.

Growing up, our kitchen was always busy. My mother baked, cooked, mixed, kneaded… you name it, she did it. Her sense of hospitality is unparalleled, and I hope I’m that welcoming some day. Some years, we had swarms of international students laughing at jell-o eggs or putting too many toppings in their burritos. Other years, we had four girls making Christmas cookies, inadvertently smearing frosting everywhere. Our kitchen was a gathering place.

A couple of weeks ago, my team was speaking in Canada, and –you guessed it– I was in a kitchen, at our host home to be precise, with the woman of the house. We had just finished the event that day and were operating on our umpteenth wind. Coffee hadn’t quite entered the equation, but I recall a Boston Crème donut somewhere along the way.

Exhaustion was overtaking us, but words have a mind of their own. Sometimes when you’re running on empty and questions crowd out the answers, you just need to stand in the kitchen for a while.

We began reflecting over the past couple of days and soon found ourselves knee-deep in soul-talk. The minutes danced by as conversation twisted through interests to cares to hopes to dreams. My soul was fed, and the hands that prepared the meal welcomed my hurting heart.

The wisdom and nurturing in those late hours is seldom forgotten, and I still wonder how those nuggets of truth last overnight.

I understand that not everyone enjoys the transparency of standing in a kitchen before the woman of the house. If it is her domain, you are walking in with an open invitation for questions. Maybe that is why it feels so freeing. After the meal, when the suds are drifting and everyone is looking for the ice cream scoop, the kitchen is welcoming and unsuspecting. The food has been eaten and the expectations are gone. People can simply be.

How often can we simply be anymore? We are fast-paced creatures, always straining for the moments ahead. Maybe we ought to spend more time in the kitchen and less inside our own heads.

Appreciate Change, and Go Hug Your Momma

It hit me when I was standing in a living room filled with half-filled boxes, and our cat was weaving his way through his last hours as a house pet. My grandma was filling boxes and cleaning the scant layer of dust hovering above the three years spent making that house a home. Our memories of that place were being folded into the rest of our lives and moving several states away to a new beachside apartment.

As my indestructible mother and dedicated grandmothers packed and cleaned, I wished for long afternoons of lemonade, chocolate chip cookies, and conversation. Living far away, I missed out on living life with them, but the times we have had together still build into my life.

In that living room, it was as if my life was placed in my hands, wrapped formally in several layers of white tissue paper, and held together with a blue silk ribbon. All of a sudden, the ties to a childhood of hiding behind my parents were cut. It was all up to me.

At my age, my mother, both of my grandmothers, and my great grandmother were married. They were learning to keep house and build a marriage. My empty ring finger doesn’t intimidate me but an empty life does.

An empty life is like a mirror that only ever reflects one face. People define a place, and though I haven’t picked a place, I have picked people. My people are scattered across county, country, and continent. But the risk is that they run a mile wide and an inch deep. The value is in the investment, and I’m ready to empty my pockets.

From Europe with Love

When I hear the rain, I can’t help but think in a British accent and wonder what it might be like to watch the water slide down a café window in a classic metropolitan downtown somewhere in Europe. 

Photo from Flickr

During those wet afternoons, I wonder what my mother is doing, how my grandmother lived when she was my age, and if I will ever be a wife. The melancholy brings out the questions that live in a coffee shop atmosphere: questions about another life. I never want to live wishing for another life. But it’s so easy for a dreamer to be trapped in a dream.

A dream is an alternate reality that is desired above the current circumstance. It’s driving a Ford and wishing for a Ferrari. It’s living at home and wishing for independence in a bustling city. It’s drinking tap water and wishing for Pellegrino. A dream is a wasting today for the promise of tomorrow.

Today I was in San Francisco. As we drove by row houses, I created a life for myself. I was living in the brick house with the long balcony full of fauna. My fridge was stocked with food from the local farmer’s market, and my furniture was second-hand, trendy from the thrift store on Magnolia Lane. My identity took root in my wardrobe, and I was what they call fashionable. The people in my life were always there for me, and we threw parties and went out together.  There was nothing inherently wrong about that life, but none of it was true. Instead, I was a passenger in my life, absently considering pushing the eject button.

We dream because we doubt the goodness of today. We don’t see the value in the people we are with, the job we are doing, or the book we ought to be reading. We are blinded with visions of another story. What is happening in our story while we want a different one? I am so tired of pressing my nose up against the glass of my life. I don’t want to live in a dream.

What purpose is there when the only vision we have is for ourselves? Where is our focus? What are we really living for?