My Kitchen

Tonight I spent some much needed, therapeutic time in my kitchen.

I don’t know why, but I had been absent from this sacred space. Lack of time? Exhaustion? Who can really tell. Today, I walked through the grocery store and picked up food that makes me happy: salmon, potatoes, mushrooms. My grandmother used to make sauteed mushrooms with cooking sherry when I was young. I loved watching her pour the sherry onto the hot pan and listening to the mushrooms sizzle. It was one of my favorite things that she would make and every once in a while, I make it and have all the memories. Sometimes when I make her recipes, it’s like I have a piece of her with me.

So it felt great to be in my kitchen tonight. As I chopped, boiled and seasoned, I noticed something about my surroundings this evening. The objects that I had placed in the kitchen were all chosen because of the immense joy that they bring me. The personal tea set my cousin sent me, the wood cutting board that I had purchased right after finishing a 50 mile hike in one day, my fire engine red microwave, the kitchen island/countertop that my friend generously bought me when I moved into this place. Yes, they are all things, but I am not saying that just having things brings happiness. I am a firm believer that the memories that come from those items can transport us to places and people from the past, and then bring us back again to the present as if nothing had happened. It’s like a form of magic, really.

As I teleported back through my “kitchen memories,” I started thinking about how our choices in life can do this also. Mini side note, I made myself chuckle, because I always imagine pieces of information, memories, stories are stored in my brain like a filing system, so when I said “kitchen memories,” I definitely conjured up the image of the old school folders on those original windows computers some years ago.

Anyway, I digress. I was postulating on my whole life philosophy/positivity mumbo jumbo that everyone is here to read about, I’m sure! Here goes: what if, like the items in my kitchen, those many different types of people, places, jobs, memories that I surround myself with are actually placed there with care, instead of haphazardly. Of course, this is the trick! We can’t always have the best job, the nicest house, the coolest tech, the best insert-whatever-you-want-here but what if, we have what is best for us right now… here, in this moment.

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

And the cherry on top of all of this is that those items in my kitchen have been sitting in their same spots for a while now. Somehow, today, I needed them to transport me, and they did. That being said, because of an inanimate object in my kitchen that hasn’t moved for the past few months, I got thrown into musings and those musings lead me back into positivity. I’m glad I put those items there!