Yesterday I packed up my kitchen and put it away.
No, that is not exactly true, but it felt like I was putting my kitchen, and by extension a part of myself on hold, like I had made some kind of bargain with the devil without reading the fine print. I brought my sweetie home. I was able to start carving out a niche for myself again, only to find that the things that are important to me are slowly being chipped away.
Here's how it happened.
On Monday evening I went to use a particular pot, a beloved pot, and as I pulled it out of the cabinet I noticed that the color had changed from the soft gray of stainless steel to a deep burnished orange-brown on the inside with orange and black spots all over the outside. This did not scrub off, even with Barkeeper's friend. It had melded with the metal. I was, at that point, far too upset to cook.
I did ask E what happened to the pan, and he said it wasn't his fault, he made popcorn using oil from the "waste oil" can, the jar where I store used oil waiting to be discarded.
Now, one shouldn't use the old oil, but the more I think about it, there had to be more than that because the pan had to be very hot, hotter than is necessary for popcorn, for the oil to scorch into the metal like that. I've made popcorn in that pan. I've fried chicken in that pan. I suppose I should be grateful he did not start a fire, and I am, but I am also still sad about my pan.
But overheating is an ongoing problem.. Countless silicone spatulas, the kind that are supposed to withstand 600 degree heat, have been melted, including my favorite, the one I use for eggs in the morning, even though it was in the jar labeled "gluten free do not use." I suppose I shall have to change that to "Mardel only do not use." He always cooks on high heat. He leaves the pans on the heat with nothing in them. I smell the hot metal and the burning oil from across the house long before I see the smoke. Although they are only things, I can't help but feel like my babies are being slowly tortured in front of me.
I've purchased new utensils to separate gluten from gluten-free. One of my favorite nonstick skillets is scratched and warped. I need a new slow cooker. Now I need to replace my 18 year old 5.5 quart Demeyere casserole as well. It is not the price. I am just as upset about my green silicone egg turner and by favorite blue colander as I am about that pan, although the thought of constantly replacing things is daunting.
Nor is the problem exclusively with this aide, it has been ongoing. It is a question of care, and the people that come to help G just don't take care, not with things. They are good with G, and ultimately G is more important than things. I know this. And yet with each thing that is lost I feel little bits of myself being lost as well. I can say that G is more important, but I can't say that the things are not important because each thing is purchased with care and thought: for years I have been eliminating the chaff, saving only the essential, the things that matter to me, and now those things are being slowly taken away.
I can teach someone not to take a hot pan off high heat and immediately run cold water over it. I can teach someone not to plunge the electric base of a slow cooker into a sink full of water. But then someone else comes, and I can't think of everything I need to teach them because so much of this is second nature to me. I can't come running and screaming into the kitchen every time a pan has been left on high heat empty for 10 minutes "so it will get hot" when I smell it burning from 20 or 30 feet away. I can't teach someone to take care of things that they don't care about. I care. They are my things. I feel ripped apart with each gash in the finish of my favorite skillet. And yet we need them, the aides. I can't abandon G just for a spatula or a pan or any other thing that may exist in the house.
I have to adapt. My only alternative is to put the things I care about away until this phase of our lives passes. I took great pleasure in my heavy "good" pans, I took care of them, I loved using them. As I cleaned them one last time, polishing the copper on the heavy copper skillet, I felt like I was saying goodbye to old dear friends. I felt like I had lost "my" kitchen, like there was no point in cooking anymore, like I had lost a part of myself.
I put up new pans. Not bad pans, a relatively inexpensive set from Macy's. It is better to just have pans I don't care about. I don't care about these pans. I don't care about using them. I don't care about loosing them. But I also realize it is not about pans at all. Things melt, things burn, it is a normal part of life, and in normal life, at home with family, I would laugh these things off.
But this is not about normal life, or not about normal life as I am prepared to embrace it. Even though I made the decision to make these changes, I hadn't really considered all the implications. I suppose decisions would never be made if we actually considered all the implications involved. It is about change, and control, and being dragged kicking and screaming to accept changes I was not really ready to make. It is about opening up the walls to the cozy little sanctuary that is/was my home and accepting change rather than building walls with things. One moment I am embracing the future, and another I am retreating into the past, holding my pan up like a shield.
Sometimes I feel like a stranger in my own house, like it is slipping away from me and I am powerless to stop it. Here I am trying to reclaim my life but I gain a little something only to lose something else. Life seems to be a lot like a teeter-totter, first I'm up, then I'm down, and I can't quite find the balance point. I know we will get there, but sometimes it seems that I hit the ground rather hard.
