Every day I enter a busy, noisy, fast moving and unpredictable world. I hate and love that world, as I feel that in the last three years we have become one, we are now inseparable. My time here is spent rediscovering myself and my surroundings. Every time I find something new exciting or daunting in a familiar landscape.
I am greeted with a creature that stays quiet until the hunger takes over it and with multiple blinks of its cyclopean eye it tells me that it is thirsty. I feed it water. Momentarily it gets louder than life, spewing, hissing, and whistling. Next to this creature lie two lakes. One of the lakes is hot, and bubbles from far deep within break the surface tension ever so often. Nobody knows what hides in its murky deep waters. In the center of the lake I can make a ship wreck and whatever it is, it is covered with some sort of colourful slime. Unlike its neighbour the other lake is clean and quiet. It is not as deep, the bottom is easily visible and the whole lake glistens. The water moves in a slow motion, and even though not seen, far away, there is a waterfall that makes this lake alive. A plateau behind the lakes is also full of strange creatures and ever changing forms and shapes. The plateau itself does not change. It is a mixed terrain of something that looks like dark wood and shiny marble. Hourly creatures appear on plateau’s surface, plants grow and clay vessels materialize out of thin air. At the North East end of the plateau live two giants. One giant spends his days heating up water in a large cauldron. The other prefers to bake bread in his oven. To the right there is a cold mountain ridge. Various fruits, vegetables and meats hide in those cool folds. To the right of the mountains there is a small Spice valley. The smell of spices brings memories of aromas from around the globe and by doing so make my world more cultured and more intriguing. Next to the Spice valley lays the Big Volcano. When it awakes the temperatures rise and water boils. Sometimes big black smoke clouds rise from within…
Every single day I feel trapped in that world. When I step into my kitchen I feel like I am surrounded by too many things and there is no air to breath that makes me feel like I am lost in the jungles of an unknown land. The size of my kitchen is nothing like a jungle; it is more like a small box, with lack of windows and counter space. My only light comes from the floating, flickering fluorescent fixture at the top. Some days I just fill up the small space between cupboards and the two sinks, one of which is always full of dirty dishes. My oven is so old that in many cases it changes its temperatures unpredictably burns my creations to a crisp.
Every day I try to find beauty and creativity in the landscape of my kitchen. While I cook I try to ignore the lack of counter space, the dishwasher, and all questionable smells that linger in the air. I try to put my creativity and imagination to work and come up with new dishes made from cheap vegetables, canned meats, and leftovers. This is living on a budget, in a small kitchen, and I ask myself who wouldn’t feel trapped?
I try to imagine that out of it all something amazing can be produced. I hope that one day I will have a kitchen of my dreams. Three years I have lived in my apartment, trapped by its little kitchen a few hours a day. Yet I manage to learn so much about being a wife, a cook, a better person. I find now that washing dishes and making brownies is very therapeutic. I still dislike it when my oven burns my meat lasagna, but I make a better one each following time.
I love and hate all the processes that take place in my kitchen. My discoveries in that world bring happiness to my family and delight to my friends. It makes me a more patient person and teaches me to try again if something fails.
There is hope that I will become a better cook. There is hope that my future kitchen will allow me to feel small not because of the daunting tasks but because of its greatness in size. One day I will have a dishwasher and will be able to wash all my dishes in one load, instead of three. After I learn how to work in this kitchen I will be able to take on any adventure, on any kitchen counter, at any time.
