Kitchen Shatter....Packing to go

My kitchen is in a box...several of them actually. Years of memories, are now contained in cardboard walls, sealed in tape, marked for destination. The deep bowls the boys and I always used to make Toll House cookies in...packed. The dishes used every Thanksgiving...packed. The rectangular dish used to make my sons's favorite "ice box cake"...packed. The rolling pin I used to make my ex-husband's favorite blueberry pie with...trashed. Some things I'll replace.

Keeping things in perspective was easy in almost every room but the kitchen. I'm embarrassed to admit that the strong emotions tied to cleaning out this one room surprised me. After all, this blog's mantra is "If life is created in the bedroom, it is most certainly lived in the kitchen."  Each item picked up, wrapped carefully in paper, then stacked in boxes, sucked the life from that theory. We raised a family in this kitchen, we hosted parties and gathered large crowds for holiday dinners. We ate, we drank, we laughed...oh, how we laughed in this kitchen.

Some of my early Kitchen Clatter blogs tell of the conversations that took place while sitting around the dinner table with our two young boys, who still remain the lights of my life. I especially remember an early blog about a dinner time chat that surprised everyone. "While handing my oldest son who was in junior high at the time potatoes one night, I asked “How did things go for you today, bub?”  He loaded his plate and responded “we learned how to put a condom on in health class. Pass the gravy please”  That made me smile.

As I struggled to stack big, heavy-bottomed pots,  I thought of the many blogs relating to the soups my Dad taught me to make for cold winter Saturdays. And maybe this was not the greatest day to do this since this day would have been his 92 birthday and I was already wishing he was still around. But when I got to the cabinet that held the snowman mugs that I served my sons hot chocolate in on December mornings many years ago, I stopped. Enough was enough.

Stop the Madness...Stop the Sadness!!

I decided what I needed most was balance. The end of a marriage, the sale of a home and, more recently, the packing of its contents are like a one, two, three punch to the gut. It can double you over and take your breath away...if you let it. I'm thinking "no".

I stepped back, called a friend, grabbed my handbag and went shopping for my new house. This will stable my equilibrium. Like a trapeze artist walking the high-wire, clutching a pole for stability, I can keep one hand on the work that needs to be done and the other reaching for the future. Balance. There is not much you can't do without it. And when I get back home, I'll pack the wine glasses. They are coming with me!