Last weekend when I had my head in the oven (no it was not a Sylvia Plath moment) at my brother-in-law’s house I was struck with the overwhelming memory of me as a very young girl in another kitchen.
I have such vivid memories of the first house I really lived in (the first house I lived in was for such little time I don’t even count it) that it still seems like “home” to me although I haven’t lived there in over 20 years. I remember the hot pink shag carpet in my bedroom, the Raggedy Ann & Raggedy Andy lamp (which I still have somewhere), the way we could race from room to room in a big circle, Dad’s brown recliner, the gold couch & the pea soup green carpet.
We had blonde wood cabinets with large copper-looking knobs. When I was very little I would sit on the top shelf of one of the lower cupboards and play in there. I’d pull all the pots & pans out, banging away like a rock n roll drummer. I also liked to have Mom shut the doors & just curl up inside. Another thing I remember very well is the oven. We had a built in oven in that house…a sort of reddish-brown color that sat on the far side of the kitchen from where you normally entered, right next to the doorway for the back living room.
Since Mom always cooked & baked a lot it was inevitable that the oven would need to be cleaned. One day in particular I was watching Mom clean the oven…since it was not self-cleaning she was using an oven-cleaning spray & a lot of scrubbing. I was underfoot observing all the scrubbing & gross black gunk being removed…not being a fan of icky things I voiced how much I disliked the process.
“Mom, that’s gross”, I said in my little voice, “when I grow up & have an oven of my own you’re going to have to come visit & clean my oven for me.”
Sadly Mom doesn’t come clean my oven but luckily I can turn it on & let it self-clean….