Sunday Scribblings - In The Kitchen

Sunday Scribblings has been running for a year! I haven't participated every week, but most weeks, if I've been about, I've tried to post something, and also tried to get to read some of the entries. As time's gone on, there have been more and more, and it hasn't always been possible, but I've met some marvellous people through this group and am hoping this just keeps running and running. Thanks to Meg and Laini for their dedication and hard work in maintaining the site, in coming up with inspiration to offer us and in encouraging writing in whatever form through the medium of something that is so simple and yet so profound in its effects for many of us. Thank you!

This week's prompt is In The Kitchen:

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In the kitchen… right now, disorder and mixtures of aromas. There’s the spice and heat of last night’s cooking. Black lentils and that new Tunisian courgette salad – Aljouk-al-Iforgetwhat. Tasty and sharp with feta crumbled on top. My hexagon-patch crocheted afghan is draped on a wooden frame to dry by the radiator. Two pairs of discarded shoes sit under the rocking-chair – one black, one beige. I am wearing tatty green slippers, with the shape of my feet in them, comfy slippers. Not elegant. The table has gathered the remains of Saturday’s Times, the bits I’ve already read and the bits I won’t read (sport, business). Unanswered letters keep a vase of chrysanthemums company at one end and advertising leaflets on their way to the bin somehow got waylaid here and are taking a rest along with the letters. The sink is (almost) empty, the cooker-top clear. There are no piles of books sitting anywhere, but a few stray boxes, candles, postcards have found their way to the counter, to join the fruit-platter (reduced now to apples and oranges: no banana, no pineapple, no pomegranate). The round gold papier-mache box that holds my angel-cards has one card on top – today’s choice, reminding me to be aware of “Responsibility”. Hmm.

The broken chairs have not yet been replaced, so the table is surrounded by a sorry collection, none of them reliable, and all destined for a visit to the recycling centre very, very soon. Two that were Nana’s, two that came with that ill-fated kitchen set eight years ago. I may tell that story another time, but not now.

The table likes its new position, the angled place we found for it after the new flooring was put in a few months ago. There’s a lovely clear triangle to walk about from sink to cooker to fridge, and there is a flow of air about the table. Here is a place to breathe, even if all is not ordered and clear right now. It’s become a manageable kitchen, a place I like, a room I enjoy working in. It’s mine. It no longer serves as office (despite the letters on the table). The rocking-chair is a spot for the dog to snooze on, rather than one for me to sit in while I read. Now that the house is mine to use as I wish, I read with no intrusion from TV or radio in the living-room whenever it suits me, or on the old couch in my study. The kitchen that once was my retreat, my domain, my sanctuary, is no longer a place in which I spend most of my day, but it is still the place I come home to. When I come home, that’s where I go first. It’s when I take my coat off, and switch shoes for slippers; plug in the kettle, there in my kitchen, that I feel myself to be really, completely, at home.

Where HAVE I been?

Hmm... how to gather together and encapsulate the past 9 or 10 days into one coherent post. I disappeared without hinting that I may be away from the computer. Stuff just happened, that's all. My sister found herself with a few free days, and came to visit, which was lovely. We ate out, and went to the theatre, (the wonderful Dancing At Lughnasa - the link is to a different production, but you get the idea!).

Then, over the weekend, from Friday evening through to late Sunday afternoon, I was taking part in a marvellous, invigorating, deep, fun, transformative, sometimes almost-scary workshop on Working with Myth and Legend for counsellors and listeners. It involved movement, dance, drama, art, introspection. Almost impossible to describe the process, but it was an immersion in legend, a place between real-life and the ineffable. The training was given by a facilitator trained by Paul Rebillot. The myth we focused on was The Children of Lir, which appears in many versions on the web. Here are two: Here and Here... This one is the one I read, and I love the language of it, though it isn't easy to read, perhaps.

No sooner had I come home, than I found myself, instead of exhausted and worn out from the intensity of the process, but energised instead - and there I was, on my patio, racing to stay with the last of the daylight, emptying dead summer-plants from my pots, and filling the pots with cyclamen, pansies and asters. I tidied and readied for winter. What's happening? Plants bought weeks ago, and suddenly, I had the energy. I left a pot of white cyclamen outside my kitchen window, with beautiful uplifted petals looking like the wings of swans.

And then, just as I came indoors to rest and relax, word came that the painter I'd booked weeks ago to come repaint my entire house, inside and out, - was going to arrive at 8.30 next morning! Panic stations! Bring the dog (poor, poor Trixie... I am sorry. I really am!) to the kennels, to keep her out from underfoot, and out of danger of paint, open doors, men's feet, furniture being moved... Start taking pictures off the walls, clearing clutter (oh, oh, oh.... that clutter!), getting ready for him.

So, since Monday, I've been getting on with the ordinary business of life - some work, some play, some seeing friends, some phone-calls, some emails, some cooking, some brief catching-up on reading blogs, but no time for posting, no time for leisurely reading.

I've caught up today, because I'm confined to my study. The living-room, hallway and kitchen are full of painters' paraphernalia, and this is a safe space, by virtue of the decision to leave it til last. - It has the most furniture to be moved. So, here I am, with books, coffee and PC. It's a hard life! - And someone else doing the hard work of actually painting. I have already brought 3 boxes of books to charity shops, and have filled another 3 boxes. There's furniture, curtains, and lots and lots of my son's old stuff to go too, so the next few weeks will be busy weeks of clearing, and that feels just great, because I will enter my 50th year (I'll turn 49, in other words) in December, and will have a clear space, a new environment around me, and I'm SO looking forward to that. Wish me the energy to complete the transformation! - But I think I'm doing well energy-wise, because it's going in the right direction, and I'm pausing to rest, and not going hell-for-leather at anything... and because I've had a very, very, very long run-in time to this project.

THAT's where I've been! Sorry to have missed Sunday Scribblings and Poetry Thursday, sorry to have not said... but it all took over fairly suddenly..

Finally, I'd like to have added a bit of visual interest in the way of photos, but Blogger wouldn't let me. I don't know why. Sorry for the boring post!

Oh... and just in case I find myself without enough going on to keep me busy....