PaintedParrot: July 2016

In the kitchen we sat at a small round table eating close together.

In the kitchen I pumped my Bosco chocolate syrup into my milk every morning: one, two, three, four, five, six pumps of chocolate. I grew up on a diet of sugar and potato chips.

In the kitchen we had a half grapefruit as an appetizer for dinner. My mother cut the grapefruit in half and we used little serrated spoons to cut out tiny little grapefruit sections and then we would squeeze the remaining grapefruit juice into the bowl and we would drink it down.

In the kitchen we could look out the window in the early years and actually see the Empire State Building all the way in the distance. Could that possibly be true? The sunsets were incredible in that housing project wasteland where we lived.

In the kitchen we ate goulash all the time. My parents' food from the old country. I spit out the fat from the meat and pushed it under the rim of the plate, hoping my mother wouldn't see it.

In the kitchen my mother would threaten to hit us with a wooden spoon when we were bad or fighting with each other, my brother, Michael, and me.

Every time my mother would open the drawer with the wooden spoon we would scream and beg her and promise to be good.

In the kitchen I never wanted to eat.

In the kitchen the TV would be on blasting in the living room while we ate our meals.

In the kitchen one day my father cut his arm and hit a vein or an artery and blood spurted out everywhere while I watched in horror.

In the kitchen there was a rotary phone with a ringlet cord where we all would talk on the phone. My mother would gossip in Yiddish to her friends for hours.

In the kitchen I sat by that phone and waited and waited for my boyfriend to call.

In the kitchen my parents found a used washing machine and brought it home and when they opened the top a million cockroaches ran out while I watched in horror.

In the kitchen I quietly snuck cookies at night after everyone went to sleep. I couldn't stop eating cookies.

In the kitchen I stayed up all night typing my report for school the night before it was due on an old, rusty typewriter.

In the kitchen I couldn't see the Empire State Building anymore after they built that tall apartment building. I couldn't see sunsets anymore. There was only a little sky left.

In the kitchen I listened to the radio when I came home for lunch while my mother sang along: I love you a bushel and a peck.

In the kitchen I fought with my mother about when I would wash the dishes. I washed them as late as I possibly could.

In the kitchen I danced around while my brother was seriously learning to cook.

In the kitchen I read books because I had no place else to go.

In the kitchen we ate creamed spinach, creamed corn. Everything was creamed.

In the kitchen my father died. He collapsed right there in the kitchen. I called the doctor on the rotary phone. He said he would come over. We waited for the doctor to come. My mother was leaning over my father's body. My brother was playing knock hockey at the community center. I was standing at the door waiting for the doctor. When the doctor came he told my mother to give mouth to mouth resuscitation. They closed the door to the kitchen. I didn't see when my father died. My mother walked from room to room, keening. I followed her from room to room. My father lay dead in the kitchen. Someone went to get my brother.

A week later we sat in the kitchen. It was Thanksgiving. We had no turkey. We had no Thanksgiving after that.

In the kitchen we sat at the round little table and looked out the window at what was left of the sky.

PaintedParrot

Monday, July 18, 2016

The Declutter Meditation, by Stacey Murphy

Saturday, July 9, 2016

In the Kitchen, by Yvonne Fisher

Friday, July 8, 2016

What's In My Pantry?, by Kim Falstick