A Writing Experiment in Everyday Ramblings

So I have been thinking about writing a poem about talking to each other in the kitchen but I haven’t had time to actually work on it and I am trying to figure out what I want to say with it. Just throwing beautiful images at it isn’t working so I thought I might try a stream of consciousness piece to get a feel for what I am trying to say. I have incorporated snippets from some of your notes…so here goes…

Come talk to me in the kitchen while I cook for us. There is a stool for you. You can help chop vegetables if you feel you need to do something. I’ve already done a lot of the prep. I remember when I was a teenager my sister and niece used to go to the outlet store for bread and some days toast would be what we had to eat.

I heard there are demonstrations in Sudan over the rise in price of bread in their terrible inflationary spiral but lets not talk about world events, tell me about your week, what you have been reading, what has made you laugh.

Let’s make tea while we talk as I move around the island and think about all those Formica tables with the metal legs I have known and the scrubbed pine ones that were mostly before my time. Once my sister, the one who bought the bread, took me to a farm for dinner with friends and they had a pine table in the kitchen and fresh spinach. The spinach was a total revelation to me, as I had never had anything like that crisp vital green taste.

I mentioned this once to my friend who loved to make potato pancakes for me and she prepared spinach in all sorts of creative ways and I became a convert. She thought I was pale, but that might have had more to do with the wine we drank and the unfiltered cigarettes we smoked.

Tell me about your daughter, I won’t share, but I know there are troubles, the way she organizes her child’s life and orders you around expecting you to be on call and always be there as a backstop, not taking into consideration your fading energy and need for time alone to recharge, those projects you were hoping to take on as you retired.

Should we add in a little fresh spinach today?

What has been going on with your cats? My other sister saw a compact fast hawk fly in the other day and perch on her suet feeder that she keeps outside her kitchen window and chase a small songbird into the bushes. She was grateful for the bushes so she didn’t see the inevitable outcome.

My cat felt comfortable enough to throw up a big hairball on me as I was sleeping the other night. They sure are out there about their bodily functions. I got tired of the other cat perching on the edge of the smaller litter box to pee and then when he stepped out tipping it so half the litter spilled out on the special carpet I have under it, the one they can scratch at to their heart’s content so I bought a new bigger box with high sides because standing here with all this food I realize how privileged I am, the running hot water, the variety of food and soap to wash my hands.

The cats totally ignored the new box, it is huge and the cardboard container it came in took up a quarter of the living room and I was in despair thinking maybe I could put a towel in it, I hate buying things that don’t fit or work, and make it into a bed when I went away the other day and found the new one had been used! This was definitely a bright spot in a long dark afternoon.

The eggs are already out. I like to keep things simple ‘cause I am so insecure at this… not having had a family of my own. The Dutch oven is such a useful invention, but I know yours is shaped a bit differently then mine.

Here let me put more water in your mug, remember all those beautiful cups we saw growing up. There is something so comforting in the heft and two handed feel of the mug, though I am fond of my travel thermos for tea on those bird watching mornings. Boy, maneuvering that flattened cardboard box out to the recycling dumpster was quite the challenge, I read somewhere that we lose 30% of the strength we had at 30 by the time we are 70. I notice it everyday, and I am glad I can still pick up my Dutch oven and get in into the oven, if you could open the door there.

Let me know if it would be helpful to take your granddaughter on a day when you are just too tired, we can make pictures of our hands and color them with glitter and then go out to the store for some bread and make toast.