I like my kitchen—just not for the same reason most people like their kitchens.
Let me explain.
My first memory is of being hoisted onto a kitchen counter and sitting there with my legs dangling while my mother’s arm, like a bar on a ski lift, kept me from falling. I think she was talking on the phone, which hung on the wall beside the refrigerator—I think. What I do remember clearly is that I was the only thing on the counter, and that, in fact, the whole kitchen was bare and spotless, like the clean skeleton of a kitchen.
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And I—I’m not making this up—also clearly remember appreciating, almost the way an adult appreciates a fine piece of sculpture, how unassuming, how undisturbed, how nothing the space was. I felt safe, not only because I wasn’t falling, but also because there was no indication anywhere that I could see that life was about doing. It was about being. It was about clothing the skeleton with beautiful thoughts about the skeleton.
Which brings me to my main, and far less poetic point: I don’t use my kitchen. Well, I mean I don’t use it a lot. I go in there. I—to reiterate—like it. It’s nice. But I don’t use it a lot. I get an apple or some pieces of raw broccoli out of the refrigerator. I pop a piece of store-bought quiche into the microwave. And other such things that make nary a splash or a stain and don’t put every appliance and surface to use. If it were a person, my kitchen would feel neglected and hurt. It might even scream and throw a plate at me.
I know what some of you are saying: It’s a guy thing. To which I retort: It’s time for the second half of the story. While my mother cooked aplenty when my brother and I were kids, later in her life when she was single the secret emerged: She hated to cook. She hated pots and pans. She hated turning on a stove. She even pretty much hated opening a refrigerator. She never really expressed it that way. She didn’t have to. Wherever she lived, the kitchen was like a quiet enclave removed from the other rooms and, for that matter, the whole rest of the world.
They never repelled me, her tomb-like kitchens. They were each like a separate vision of my first memory. Each in its own way seemed to welcome me back into an original state. Like her, I never felt up to tarnishing them with a lot of activity.
Is all this a genetic connection? I wouldn’t mind believing so. If you’re an astrology buff (as I am sometimes, and as my mom was sometimes), you would say it was cosmic. My moon sign is Libra. My mom’s moon sign was Libra. An astrology book I read once refers to those with this moon sign as “not really physical people.”
But in other rooms of my house and in other interior places, my need for doing in addition to being kicks in. I’ve spent my share of time working in restaurants, and I didn’t despise it all that much. In general I’m not, and never have been, comatose. I played so much soccer when I was growing up that dreams of professional stardom danced in my head. I played so much basketball that the skin on my fingertips was perpetually down to its last layer. And other people’s bountiful, vibrant kitchens never repel me.
So the mystery remains, I suppose, and my kitchen remains a special place—just not for a utilitarian reason. An ineffably special place. Some kind of meditation room I go to when I need a simple snack.