In Donata's Kitchen

Entry #15: And a look back at the very beginning

ON this particular morning, it was August, and I wandered the gardens as I ate granola. I piled a parfait into a thrifted rose color vintage Arcoroc bowl. It was a cardamom scented granola layered with freshly plucked figs, plain yogurt, and a drizzle of honey infused with rose petals. The moment felt decadent. I felt complete. I felt grateful. I felt whole.

I think I like this simple life, I thought, to myself. I didn’t speak it out loud this time, to the plants, as I usually would. I wasn’t looking for their feedback, this time.

Long ago, and not so far away, a decision was made. My partner would go out into the big bad world to slay dragons, I would keep close to home and tend the hearth. For many years, most of the last 33 years, actually, I regretted this decision, wanting to assert my own authority out in the wider world, not honoring the value that I brought to the table of our little realm. What are you going to do once the kids are grown? Everyone asked. And I believed them.

The search has led to a list of diverse experiences, the trying on of many hats, like I’m in search of some missing piece of me. As hard as I have tried I just couldn’t make anything outside of my chosen career of hearth keeper stick. And though it doesn’t seem fulfilling to most, I really have known what I’ve wanted to do all of this time. After I raised the children, I knew I would raise plants and I would write. Not just about the plants, but of my humble existence as hearth keeper, teen bride, mother, corporate wife. I would write of the confusion I feel as a hybridized American with northern and southern Italian blood crossing streams in my veins. I would write of my time volunteering in my community, the kids’ schools, their sports. And I would write of my long slow slog through academia in search of acronyms to pin behind my name. This effort just never seemed like a good answer to societal expectations, this sort of extended hearth keeping.

But, now, as I am finally settling into my fifties, I can feel a shift. 

Right at this moment (way back in August 0f 2024), I’m sitting next to my husband as he works. We’ve spent 33 years in union now. Practicing this version of life together. I am looking out at the open french doors at the view. I see over the river slough, over U.S. 2, and into the city of Everett. I can see the two of us, traversing the bridge there, what the locals call “the trestle”, on that fateful day, thirty-three years ago. I have such a vivid memory of lunch on that day: macaroni and cheese with a side salad of iceberg lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and cucumber, doused in ranch, with fries. He asked if I was done. Then he grabbed my hand, I caught a whiff of Gray Flannel. I appreciated the roughness of his hands, calloused from weight lifting. We escaped out the back door, raced over the speed bumps, and made our way out onto the safety of Cedar Street. We had an appointment to keep.

I remember making our way back to school, a rainbow shone across the hill in front of us, the golden light of the sun shone behind us. It had rained. The landscape glowed an emerald green. We were cocooned in our Chariot, the little orange Datsun hatchback he had bought from his sister in law with the money he earned slinging hash browns at the local breakfast spot. What are we going to do? One of us asked. I looked at the little bag sitting on my lap, the storks of blue and pink dotted the exterior as little puffs of baby powder and formula drifted out from its middle. We’ll get married, he said. The clock glowed 11:11 as I laid my head in his lap. Keep on moving, keep on moving don’t stop, no, keep on moving droned on in the background.

And, more to come, on that.