The Center

After the worst day, I want my kitchen.

I want to drive home with no diversions, no stops, nothing to keep me from remembering my goal or the place that I'm going. I don't want to listen to the radio, or even my favorite song, and I certainly don't want to involve anyone in my misery by calling them to whine about it on speakerphone (okay, this is a lie. Certain Moms Whom I Call At Times of Distress, you know who you are, and I'm sorry.) I want to get there, and I want to screech to a stop in my garage, gather my things, explode up the seven steps, hoping hoping hoping not to run into a neighbor this time. I want to feel the lock give beneath my key, and I want to spill into the house, where the temperature makes sense and the things I love are waiting. The light switch is part of my motion as I close the door behind me, and my bags will hit the ground, my shoes will come off. My eyes will dart around in their usual entering-the-house pattern, as I survey the state of affairs and let my mind tell me I'm home, as I let my feet feel this part of the earth that can always make me feel whole again.

The structure of my home is such that, when you arrive, the door empties you out into the kitchen. This works. This is my destination. The radio is welcome now, and I choose the Dizzy Gillespie station and hope that it will Pandora-itself into that one song that has all the idioms in it. It connects, and I scoff at the Glade ad that comes on first. Chances are good that there will be dishes in the sink from breakfast, and I will find myself washing them in my coat or vest, water splatters on the nylon and no wonder I'm getting so hot in here. The kettle goes on and the best mug comes out from its cabinet, and the refrigerator opens, the cabinets open. Just once, then closed. Everything is just how I left it. Good. Dinner ideas pile up in my head, but I remind myself that I am allowed to breathe first. Breathe first? What? Why would you do that? Oh, that. I breathe, not too solidly, but meaningfully, and I try to decide if my feet are hot enough to take my socks off. I scour the room with my eyes, hunting for small things to accomplish. Tiny accomplishments are like medicine. (Uh, sometimes they are actually medicine.) Dishwasher emptied! Yesterday's mail opened! The always-neglected area behind the breadbox dusted! Coffee pot washed out! Orchid watered! Bowls stacked! Toaster unplugged! Three Motrin swallowed! It's time for tea.

I sniff my options. Echinacea tea? Helpful but disgusting. At work I was certain I was getting sick, but now that I'm far away, I'm pretty sure it was the plague of non-profit disorganization that was cramping each and every one of my organs. Not echinacea tea. Chamomile tea? For God's sake, I don't need a tea telling me to calm down. Shut up, tea! Pomegranate Red Rooibos tea? So I can spill it on my light gray shirt and make my day a little worse? Um, no. Apple cinnamon tea that tastes like the very part of autumn that I actually love, not the part that makes it get dark at four o'clock in the afternoon? Yes. Yes, please.

I haven't even changed into my play clothes yet because, well, I have forgotten to leave the kitchen. Or, rather, I haven't found a reason to leave the kitchen. The other rooms have fallen dark, and I make my rounds, turning on switches and welcoming the rooms into the evening. The living room light comes on, and as the dimmer rises, I startle all too easily in reaction to seeing our coy, new-ish roommate, Frankie, on the floor. (How many times will I have to look at the scraped-up-from-life-in-the-dumpster, armed-but-hands-less torso before I stop having the initial reaction of --Jesus! Fuck! There's a naked, muscular, stiff-bodied, arrogant-looking half-man on the floor with real-man eyelashes and accurate eyebrows! Help!--?)

The phone rings and, thankfully, it's my mother, who has the sort of power that enables her to make me feel better no matter what she says. I swear to you, she could call to say, what a terrible sweater you're wearing, and my day would improve drastically. She doesn't say that, of course, and I sit at the kitchen table as she tells me about -- yes, this is a funny coincidence -- the kitchen renovations they're undergoing. I smile as she recounts the horror that dozens of evil aliens (okay, contractors) can bring into a home in a few short days, and my heart curls up when she says that she misses all the things in the kitchen, which has been rendered inaccessible for the week. It's the hub, she says fondly of the kitchen. We don't need any other room more! I am, I know, clearly this woman's daughter. What an incredible honor this is, I think, and I picture us having a slumber party on the kitchen floor, laughing as we drag bare mattresses into the kitchen, smooth mattress bottoms up against my hardwood floors or her shiny new tiles.

I return to the kitchen, padding around, thinking about how much I love to be at home, how much I love this kitchen and all the things in it. The cobweb in the high corner makes me roll my eyes, and I mentally add it to my list of things to do over the Thanksgiving holiday. The scratches in the red table (you know, that red table) shine under the light flickering from a candle, and the ice maker rumbles inside the freezer, and I'm thankful that it's not one of the eighteen things that broke this week. The glasses in the cabinet shake slightly against each other in reaction to the vibrations of the light fixture that lives underneath it, and I picture a silver bullet lightening train whizzing through the kitchen, romantically rattling all the dishes against each other, then settling as I hear the train moving into the distance. I have my tea, and I poke around at bowls and pots and pans, trying to decide which ones will be best for mixing the lamb kefta, cooking the couscous, serving the salad. It suddenly sounds so complicated, this dinner I had planned, and I try to list all the reasons not to order take-out.

I eye the clock courageously and decide to deal responsibly with whatever numbers it has for me. Seven thirteen. I calculate how many hours until Matthew comes home, and my worries of the day start to roll back over my skin as I think about the things I need to accomplish before bedtime. I try to prioritize, to list, to plan, but instead I end up lifting up my mug of tea that has cooled off considerably, and I try to both breathe in and breathe out before the lukewarm swallow of cinnamon. I stare down the sounds of the Mel Lewis Jazz Orchestra, then close my eyes to think. I lift my glasses off a bit to rub the bridge of my nose, and I open my eyes skeptically, which makes me laugh at myself. Surrounded by my tool shed, my wares, my safe spot in an otherwise prickly day, I find my strength again, and I stand up, stretch into my body, and move towards action, towards the safety of building something, the tranquility of cooking the dinner.