I keep finding my Grandmother in this room. Her small wrinkled hands turn the pages of the cookbook while I am making the mushroom pastries. She hides behind the green and white checked apron and peeks out at me when I put it on. Last night I could have sworn I saw her mending the hole in that potholder I made on the loom when I was little.
My hips have an achey-ness in them today. We walked to the farmers market this morning, then to the big grocery store, gathering our food for the week, seven breakfasts and lunches and dinners. The kind Caribbean clerk at the grocery store always helps me. Today he said the stroller was extra heavy and the most important thing was to keep the baby safe. It was so full and heavy that I had to put the huge bunch of kale on top of the baby. Halfway home I panicked, wondering if my child was smothered by greens (she is OK).
And my Grandmother is here today, too. She is the achiness, the tired, the non-stop, the caregiving, the providing, the working, the walking, the putting away, the cleaning, the chopping, the washing. This room is so active these days. Each meal a kind of prayer for our lives.
My Grandmother is here in the kitchen more than anywhere in my house, or in my life for that matter. She did this, too. She took care and washed the vegetables and put the fruit in the fruit bowl while little children played at her feet. I long for more yoga and stretching on my white fluffy rug, I do. But for now, here I am, in the holy kitchen, doing holy things, scrubbing the leftover egg from the cast iron skillet several hours after breakfast finished.
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