lesleyjonesberry

Sixteen months ago I stopped working and this has been long enough for people to ask how I am enjoying retirement.  I interpret this as really asking “What on earth do you do with your time?” I feel better if I can reply with a list of activities. My response must be plausible, at least some of the time, as friends have taken to saying “I know how busy you are” and then I feel a fraud. 

I am writing Christmas cards. Every year I resolve to write them early; every year I end up harassed by the last-posting dates. I don’t tend to give cards to people I see in the ‘here and now’. My list is almost entirely a ritual of recalling the past, my past. Such as: two college friends I haven’t seen for over forty years. They weren’t my closest friends, but we met in the first week and three years later we graduated together; they were reliable and stable. The fact of their continuing to participate each year in this small, trivial exchange provides reassurance of something.

Yesterday, we moved the table in the kitchen.

Kitchens are important rooms. While the whole house provides shelter, the kitchen provides food. It’s a space which is absolutely core to the idea of ‘home’ and our essential needs. It matters that we feel comfortable there.

If you’ve ever reworked your own kitchen, you’ll perhaps share my feeling that a refit feels like choosing an entire lifestyle. The one time we did this, I felt assaulted by the level of expectation. The marketing told me a kitchen ought to have pristine surfaces, centre islands, sophisticated coffee-making facilities, carefree sociability. The kind of place where one tosses back one’s mane of glossy hair, laughing gaily while holding a huge shiny, smudge-free glass which is just a quarter full of golden wine. Frankly, they were kitchens where I’d need to be redesigned as well.