Entry 16

5/27/2017

Kitchens always soothe me. I love the messy organised jumble of it all. The smells and the memories of baking cookie pies an cakes.

I love the ability to turn simple ingredients into melt-on-your-tongue chocolate chip cookies, into fudge and hot apple pie. Into soups and spaghetti, pizza and pancakes and scones.

Some of my dearest memories are of tea in the kitchen with my eldest sister Abi, listening to instrumental music and soundtracks with my second eldest sister Ellie, arguing good naturedly and goofing around with another elder sister Mia.

Singing Fidler on the Roof and Les Miserables with my sisters and best friends.

Chatting and occasionally crying to mum.

Scrubbing floors on my hands and knees.

Washing dishes till my hands are pruned.

Singing to my hearts content like I'm the only person around- which is usually the case.

The kitchen is my little haven. Its yellow and white and wooden.

Clean counters, cluttered spice cabinets, flour covered aprons and licking sugar off fingers.

Mixing and testing making omething beautiful.

The magic of a kitchen.

Getting to know a kitchen is much like getting to know a person. Its always a bit messy, you never remember where things go and end up opening drawers and cupboards best left unopened.

But once you know a kitchen, it is amazing. A friendship is born and good things are made. Delicious foods and some not-so-good-mistakes happen, but no matter what, the kitchen and that person are your friends for life.

Even if you leave the kitchen and come back a long time later, having forgotten where everything goes, the mistakes are more amusing than awkward, as they were before.

As I sit here, basking in melancholy and nostalgia, counting the hours till I see Mia again, anticipating the surprise of my siblings at her unexpected advent, I feel supremely happy. Happy and also sad in a way I simply cannot express.

Oh what to do with me?

Mum comes downstairs and says,

“Sometimes I think you belong in a bakery in Paris. Sipping your tea and lookin out over- whatever river or lake they have in France.”

We laugh at this and I turn up the soundtrack to Amilé that I have been listening to. Its Parisian sounding music thrumming and twinkling around the kitchen making my feet itch to dance.

I sit on the barstool and look out the window to the dusty street and smile.

“One day…” I murmer. “One day I will.”