always the kitchen

This place.  It's a source of fulfillment.  Of feeding & being fed. Ankled tied to all things preparation and yet it's safe haven walls are the passing ||GO|| for $200 every time.  For both self and family. It's sanctity. It's insanity.  It's the late nights when you can't sleep.  It's birthday candles aglow. It's the early morning alone. It's commitment and together.  This room.  And no matter the numbers that procure a post on my mailbox, no matter the square footage, it's always the kitchen.

Best memory keeping comes from doing it.  There is no specific format or routine that catapults past into present. It's simply finding your groove and sinking down into it. Sometimes deeply.  And sometimes with a quick shallow swim through your pool of collected & kept. But with each visit back, you are building best.  You're laying a tiny bread crumb trail for those very moments you don't want to forget.  For those very captured minutes that bring you to a place of real with reminders that little really does make the BIG.

A couple days ago, I reposted words about my Dad I had written 2 years ago on Father's Day. I did so as it was his birthday.  With a quick social media shout out, these collected memories were able to conjure up such wonderful emotions for so many that love my Dad. And wouldn't you know it? It was a kitchen photograph from 1981.

These images filed into this post are sacred now.  I can only imagine their appraised worth in just 5 years.  For my little girl kitchen table will still be the table we gather around for nourishment each night, but we will have a 15 & 13 year old with clothes lots, lots larger than the ones you see littered across the floor in folded piles.

Games will continue only voices will be deeper.  And laundry piles will be bigger.  Music will still carry our home as it does in the images above.  Be it loud or whispered and noteworthy, song will surround us.  And nights, I imagine, will still run much later than they should as, well, that's when the best grooves of together are sometimes found.

I would imagine 5 years from now there will be less Nerf bullets and plastic Army men underfoot.  Less piles of toys found tucked in corners and left for next time on the counter.  But, now?  Right now.  This is our $200.  It's our passing || GO || more times than I can count.

Keeping memories best.

I can't give you a formula.

But I can tell you the bread trail is worth leaving.

{week 47:  my 2 in 52}