- when i was a kid, i would hang out in lowe's a lot. my parents went through this home renovation phase, and they would let me stay in the kitchen mock-up section while they picked out paint thinner or whatever.
i would walk through the tiny fake kitchens, each with their glossy granite countertops and sinks that didn't work, and i would pretend that I was somewhere else, somewhere without any substance maybe, but nothing depressing happened and all the empty cabinets had a coat of high-gloss paint.
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i would pretend to be thirty and open the drawers, looking for the spices that my thirty-year-old self would have organized. she favored cumin and cloves. i would look over the sink and pretend i was looking through a window onto a garden, a secret kind of place, with trees whose branches hung really far down and the sound of water trickling somewhere.
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i would reach down to scratch a bloody mosquito bite on my ankle, and imagine i was petting my dog. she would be one of those dignified kinds of dogs, something English maybe. she would curl up next to me while i drank tea in an overstuffed armchair and read really good books.
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my eight-year-old self understood how this was going to work. she knew what she wanted. she didn't think much about what she was actually worth, or what other people would or wouldn't be willing to give her.
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she didn't think much about whether it was selfish to have a pretty kitchen when other people didn't have food. she didn't wonder about how much that kind of kitchen would cost, once she figured in labor and tax. she didn't try to figure how many months she could make the payments on those granite countertops once she got laid off. she just liked it. she figured that if she liked something, she might as well set her sights on that instead of something she didn't like, or nothing at all.
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my twenty-two-year-old self is just confused. there are so many people who spend so much time explaining to me that i should trust their whims, not my instincts. what they want me to do is wise, what i want to do is foolish, selfish, misguided. i try to be honest, and the only things they have for me in return are derision and silence.
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i have a solution. design your own kitchen. i'll invite you over when mine is done.
