the kitchen

a little birdie in my ear said these blogs sounded a bit down, so this is just a moment's explanation.

i have learned a small something about myself in these two weeks here... there is this special place inside my head where i go when the dancing life around me gets too big and too confusing. from here on, i will call it: the kitchen.

the kitchen, you ask? but, allyssa, why the kit-chen?
it is quite simple, i reply.

the kitchen is a complex place. it is a bright place, perhaps the brightest place in the whole house. there are lots of windows... beautiful palladium windows through which the bright afternoon sun blazes, out of which a perfectly manicured garden is visible... with tulips... lots and lots of tulips (they are my favorite, you know). in the kitchen, everything is neat and clean and shiny... it has to be, you see, because this is where the nourishment for the body is prepared. everything has its proper place... everything is organized.

but, the kitchen can be more than the serene better-homes-and-gardens picture of perfection. the kitchen is the beat of the house. it is alive with conversation and noise and the deliciousness of meals to-be. the kitchen is where the hungry go to be refueled--physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

i have spent two weeks in the kitchen... thinking... observing... reflecting. i have spent so much time inside myself, i have reached this blissful level of mellowness. I like the way that word looks... mellowness. Say it with me... mellowness. i think Crayola should make a color out of it.

anyways, what i am trying to say in a rather fanciful manner, is that, i have spent two weeks internalizing all this newness, this swedishness, this european spirit.

it is like i am a little girl all over again. my absolute favorite thing to do at the supermarket used to be to just sit in that little cart-sitter thing at the front of... yes, you've guessed it... the cart and watch people. I watched old ladies pick up a pieces of fruit, inspect them, sniff them, and then place them carefully in their carts so as not to bruise these precious jewels. or, I studied infantbehaviour. first, there is a crinkle up of the nose, then the face starts to get red, and just when you think it is going to let out this huge, gasping scream, you hear a mostrous squirting noise and you can't help but giggle.

i think, as we get older, we learn to spend less time observing and delighting in the world around us. instead, we spend out time huffing and puffing about how inconveinent life has trying to navigate through all this people-traffic. this time in a foreign country has left me with two choices (there maybe more, but i am trying to make a quick point here): 1. i can huff and puff and blow houses down... oops, no... that's not it... umm... i can spend this time here carrying on life as i would in the u.s. or, 2. i can spend time watching... like some private inspector... maybe i should go and buy a khaki coat and hat and a pair of ridiculously large sunglasses. or, maybe i could find a pair of those nose/mustache/eye combo. dealio disguise thingys... yeah, that would be cool. and, i could carry around city stockholm paper to blend in with all the commuters... to throw everyone off into thinking i am a true svensson. but seriously, until i learn some swedish, i am left to watch other people interact, perhaps learn a few words from eavesdropping on their conversation, but probably not. when i get tired of doing that, i through huge parties in my kitchen and invite all the weird people i have seen. tonight, i am going to invite the woman who was eating an ice cream bar at 9:30 a.m. while reading (rather surreptitiously) a dirty romance novel. maybe the coldness of the treat was to counteract the heated love scenes she was imagining herself in. i wonder if she would like to talk to the rowdy, drunk high school students that were singing old swedish ballads last night. or, maybe that would make her a bit uncomfortable... i bet it would be an amusing scene nonetheless.