cutlery

often, i come by my parent's house to write these posts. i live downtown, and i work in the suburbs and here, right in between the two, is this little haven: my old house. this is where i grew up, my family has lived in this house for twenty years. when i moved out for the second time over a year ago, i never would have thought this house would become what it has. it is a stopover, a place to shower before work sometimes, a fridge to raid, and i'd never thought it could even be that much to me; but my family is still here, my mom, my dad, my sister, and they guard a certain quiet in this house i forgot had existed. not literal quiet, of course -- they are a little too verbose for me, but that's just how they show their affection. i'm not exactly sure what kind of quiet it is that i find here -- for so long there was nothing but turmoil between me and my family, and i'm sure that if moved back here it would be the same -- but there is something reassuring in being able to come home from time to time, to find that the doors and walls that hold the memories of my childhood are still here, even if they've got a knew doorknob or an extra coat of paint on them.

it is nice to come back and after rifling the pantry for food, to open the silverware drawer to find the same cutlery i grew up with -- shiny, long butterknives, deep welled spoons, solid, sturdy forks with extra long tines and handles that end in simple florettes. they're heavy in my hand; i have complete confidence in them. they aren't beautiful, and they're a ragtag assembly of several different sets, but they are what i think of when i think of knives and spoons and forks. you could say in a weird way i'm sentimentally attached to them. they compose the set of cutlery i've used since i was a child, they are the memory of all the meals i've had with my family, they are tokens of my home; i compare all other cutlery to them , and all other cutlery could never match the value of their familiarity, no matter how fine.

and, of course, they are much better than all of the the silverware i have in my apartment.