Home Cooking

This past weekend was my last one at home. In a week, I will be buying furniture at Ikea and moving most of my possessions into a lovely apartment in Van Ness (northwest DC). Even though the word "home" doesn't really invoke feelings of permanence and emotional comfort in me because of my family's instability (geographical and otherwise), this place in Falls Church, VA is nevertheless the only place that I can claim as home for now. I mean, most of my stuff is here, although by that definition my home was for a while in a storage unit somewhere in Virginia or in my grandparents' attic.



 But next week, I don't think I'll even be able to call this house home anymore. Compared with going off to college and its accompanying false sense of independence, this move is real. I'll be bringing most of my stuff to my new apartment, getting rid of the rest, and leaving only a few boxes in the basement so I won't even be able to use the location of "my stuff" as a marker for home. With a measly (but real!) income, I will be, for the first time in my life, no longer my parents' dependent.



I'd be lying if I said I that have reservations about moving, but I'll definitely miss this kitchen. I'll miss the Viking stove, the All-clad pots and pans, and the huge island for me to make messes on. This kitchen has been a pleasure to cook in and I hope that whatever place I end up settling into many years down the line will have a kitchen as nice as this one. Moving around and living in and out of cardboard boxes for much of my life makes the idea of settling down eventually all the more romantic. To be able to stay in one place, accumulate things whose real purpose is to preserve some small piece of memory, and buy appliances that are only uni-taskers like an ice cream maker or mortar and pestle simply because you have the time and space for such things sound incredibly ordinary but equally unattainable at this stage of my life.



The first step, however, is easy. I'll be taking my ice cream maker with me.