Confidants in the kitchen

Bonnie and I have taken up the task of typing for each other, sometimes. As well, in Bonnie's writing she is trying to use the new pronoun "they" when it is meant to designate just one person. Today Bonnie has made me her agent, saying that I can blog the piece she spoke to me while I typed. She begins to talk and I type:

         ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Where are you sitting, they asked? They were sitting in their basement, in their room of their own. They have called their mother. They have chatted. They are writing about sharing their thoughts for generations to come.   

They woke to a quiet morning. They thought to themselves, today is the day. Today is the day to embrace their life. The phone was off. Their TV was still on: “The Blues Brothers” on its final chase scene. They had fallen asleep and missed every song from their childhood. They played with the remote, flipping around until they get a chance to hear the Blues Brothers sing “Stand By Your Man”. They heard the film through new ears, this time hearing in the intro “this is a favourite song of the horn section”. Thoughts of a recent mammogram intrude into the writing process.

Have you ever had someone type for you while you dictated? The process might be different than you imagine. Speech is slowed when thinking of the typist and at other times words tumble out, no, race out like the 12 Horses of the Apocalypse. Freed from the process of putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard can lead to unexpected outcomes. Do you cherish conversation? Do you have a cherished confidant with whom you can trust your inner voice that even you, yes, that even hides from you.

I do.

There were a few places I knew of, as a child, where I could go, unseen and listen, allowing my mind to follow the conversation, or drift away, without impunity. To listen in the shadows, rather than being in the spotlight, limelight, or even the designated audience seat, from which the artist might, suddenly turn the tables and invite you into the drama.

... the noisy cabin, dubbed thus because this is the place 
where the families with young children stayed ...

One place was in the noisy cabin. 

Late at night, children sent to bed, the adult treats set out on the table, perhaps Bridge Mix, cards in people’s hands, some people in the kitchen, some at the cedar table now that dishes had been cleared away and the surface wiped clean. 

I had to wait a long time in silence, hovering in the hallway, just back from the corner where I could cross the corridor and head left down to the bathroom. 

It is a space hard to describe because it is not really a space, not a place you would stop, one where you might impede traffic. And there is nothing to look at, nothing to do, just a spot to hold your breath, crouch and listen.

an old family quilt

. . . the speckled grey piece, top right
from Arta's shift dress; the green velvet
in the middle from the collar
of her going away suit..."   (circa 1961)

Another such spot was at my grandfather’s house underneath a quilt, well, materials that were becoming a quilt. Looking up, you could see needle and thread, a single hand waiting for the needle to come down, well a host of single hands. Looking left and right, legs, some in nylons, some with socks that had lost their elastics, humbly crumpled around ankles. Slippers. Legs in pairs. Not crossed for modesty’s sake like you might see at church, but feet in broad stances, bearing the weight of the work and the conversation, grounded feet. And if you laid there, quietly enough, if you weren’t invisible, you were at least part of the room that faded into the background as conversations were patched together – some practical and some deeply serious.

The job of the listener: ignore the saliva that springs into the mouth when the crinkle of the bags of adult treats were opened. Resist the urge to ask for some. Resist focus on desire or resentment. Mostly easily done when the conversation became hard to understand. Words I didn’t know I tried to hold in my mind so I could ask my mother about them the next day. Careful, not to become so absorbed or engrossed that a gasp or a giggle might give me away.

These memories come back to me as I think about conversations in the kitchen. In pandemic times, I miss those conversations. The times of being a listener, and the times of being the speaker. I want to say being the supplicant as in a confessional, but I wasn’t raised a Catholic. Where do we find a chance? No, I turn away from questions. Instead, I state I have found a way to have confidants in the kitchen. I will have them right here, with you, dear one, my confidant, my typist, my friend, my mother.

Bonnie