In the Kitchen

The majority of my time is spent in the kitchen. (Funny how this seems to be the lot of many women).

The time is mostly spent doing the mediocre chores: loading and unloading the dishwasher and/or washing machine, cleaning out the fridge, clearing out the cupboards, picking up my daughters magnetic alphabets off the floor for the umpteenth time, putting away groceries and of course cooking – an activity I spend the bulk of my time on (too much time if you ask me). As I don’t ever buy ready made microwaveable meals (I like to know what goes into my food) I tend to cook everything from scratch, and I mean everything and believe me, this takes a lot of time. But I get the satisfaction of knowing that my family gets a wholesome, healthy meal with no additives.

Then there are the times when the kitchen stops being the place where I perform mediocre tasks and becomes a place that offers quite a different attraction for me. It becomes a room I can unwind in – a sanctuary of sorts. This is where I sit and read the Sunday paper over a steaming mug of tea, or scribble in my journal, or sneak into to have a quiet phone call with a good friend. It’s the place where, during the summer, I sit on the back step leading into the garden and soak up the sun and watch my flowers grow. Above all, it is the one place where I am allowed to indulge in one of my favourite pastimes – listening to the radio.

In a corner of the kitchen counter on a pile of cook books sits my cute little pale pink DAB satellite radio which was a Christmas present from my husband and the first thing I do when I walk into the kitchen is turn it on. And although I don’t always pay attention to the programme that’s on, the low background murmur of the moderators’ voice has a very comforting and soothing effect on me. Strange but true.

And that’s how I spend my time in the kitchen.

Breath/Breathing

A story of my breath

Some things leave me breathless

Walking up a flight of steps at 28 weeks pregnant
Making love with my husband
Anticipation

Some things take my breath away

A stunning view
A pair of to-die-for shoes
The love for my daughter

Some things make me catch my breath

A piece of good news
Cold water on my skin
Surprises

Some things make my breath stop

Seeing pain and suffering
Unbearable disappointment
The loss of a friend or loved one

I use my breath in many different ways and for many different things

To –

Centre myself
Keep stress at bay
Release tension
Tease
Get that stubborn smudge off a mirror
Stream up a window to write ‘I love you’

And now the Haikus...

The Kiss

As heads draw closer
Their breaths becoming as one
They await the kiss

Goodbye

I watch as you leave
My breath catches in my throat
I refuse to cry


Breath, great healer

Mummy it’s hurting
I hold your finger and blow
The pain goes away

And finally, from an unknown writer...

Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

Stillness/Calm

The last few days have been unsettled ones for me. My emotions have been on a roller coaster ride of highs and lows – getting stuck mostly on the lows. Unable to pinpoint the exact cause of my see-sawing emotions, I am taking the obvious route and putting it down to pregnancy hormones. I am not blooming {gracefully} as the books suggest I should be. On the contrary, I am quite grumpy, irritable and impatient at the moment.

But what I feel I am the most is, off center. Like a train not running on the right tracks.

I wander around
Blindly in the dark searching
For something unknown

However, when I saw the prompt for this weeks’ One Deep Breath, I suddenly realised what was missing - making me feel so off center: The lack of stillness and calm in my life.

Forever running
‘Slow down’ a still voice whispers
I don’t stop to hear

When I was pregnant with my first child, I spent a lot of time being still. I spent a lot of time in pray and quiet meditation. Each day I prayed for my unborn daughter. I talked to the swell of my belly, listened to classical music, kept a pregnancy diary and read every book under the sun about the amazing changes my body was going through. I was the pregnancy and the pregnancy was me.

Through prayer I got
The desires of my heart
She is living proof

But this time around it’s been very different. I have done none of the above mentioned things. I feel removed – disconnected even – from this pregnancy. And this is eating me up with guilt. Every minute I’m awake is consumed with my being a mother to my daughter, a wife to my husband and an employee to my firm. I long to be still but seem unable to attain it. I constantly plague myself with questions: do I have enough love in me for a second child? Am I afraid to be still? Am I a good mother? Why is it so different this time around?

I want to love you
Every minute I am awake
But can’t find the time

I tried to do some baby shopping on Friday but as I stood in the shop surrounded by all this baby stuff it hit me that I didn’t have the faintest clue what to buy.

So today I visited the nursery of our local DIY store to buy some spring plants for my garden. I got home, put on a DVD for my daughter and spent the next hour and a half digging up beds and potting flowers. And although I was busy, strangely it was the closed I had come to being still in the last six months. Perhaps it was the cool crisp breeze on my skin, or the colours of the flowers, or the act of creating a hanging basket or of transforming a plain old terra cotta pot into a vessel carrying the beginnings of a display which will in a few months time delight the eyes and give pleasure, that caused a calmness – a stillness – in me. Feeling the stillness of God through nature? Maybe.

I search for stillness
Above the din that is life
I find it slowly

So forgive me for rambling on but these words have been therapeutic. And I hope, a week from today, things will look a whole lot brighter.

Calm I will remain
Comforted by the knowledge
That this too shall pass

Dream Journey

My dream journey is quite simple and it's ...

To go away somewhere
On my own
No husband
No child
Nobody
Just me
Alone

Earth/Mud/Dirt

Haute Cuisine

I wouldn’t eat it
But my plants think it’s yummy
Tasty brown earth

My daughter has been out in the garden again

Wellies caked with mud
Leave tiny dirty foot prints
Over my cream carpet

Superstition

Me?
Superstitious?
Nah!
I only walked around that ladder because there was a puddle of water right underneath it.

Me?
Superstitious?
Of course not!
I got some salt on my fingers when the salt cellar spilt and that’s what you saw me dusting off over my left shoulder.

Me?
Superstitious?
Don’t be silly!
I didn’t have much to do on Friday the 13th that’s why I stayed at home all day.

Me?
Superstitious?
How absurd!
I only crossed the road to get to the ATM not because I saw a black cat coming my way.

Me?
Superstitious?
Whatever gave you that idea?