ESPRESSO & LEATHER
Espresso and cream at my red kitchen table at 7 pm. I’d say it was going to be “one of those nights” but I don’t actually know what I’m doing tonight. I felt like an espresso, I made an espresso.
Everyone’s home has a center. For me, it’s this red kitchen table. I’ve had it for years, since before the first Texas – New York move. I found it in a thrift store in Austin for thirty dollars, I believe. The table was originally a light blonde color — the color of most mass-produced furniture. But when I got it home, I flipped it over to examine the slide-out leaves and the wobbly legs, and found that not only was it much older than I thought, but more artfully made. Being dragged across kitchen floors countless times had weakened joints and loosened bolts, and I shimmed and tightened where necessary. Then I pulled out the sandpaper and a bucket of red paint, and went to work.
I spilled the paint five minutes into the job. A half-gallon of oil-based red soaked into the living room carpet. I didn’t get my deposit back when I moved out, obviously. The actual cost of the table went up considerably.
But it’s the center of every apartment, every “home” I inhabit. I read at it, write at it, eat at it, stack papers and books all over it until there is no more room to read or write or eat, clear it off, and start over again. I swept the surface clean last night for dinner guests. Today I’m back at the table, at ease in my little apartment for the first time in a while. This is a surprising feeling; I hadn’t realized it’d been missing. So, if I had to pick three pieces of furniture to save — if I had to give all the rest away — I’d choose the red kitchen table, one of my red chairs*, and my card catalog. The rest can go.
Now for more pressing and embarrassing matters:
By my count about 15 days before I leave on my motorcycle trip. Final details and leftover questions are popping up left and right. The list I keep on my chalkboard gets erased, rewritten, and crossed out with alarming regularity. The weather has been cold this week, and I worry about how to stay warm. I need a balaclava — one of those hoods that goes under the helmet and drapes down your neck to keep you toasty when you’re driving 80 mph into the wind — and I’m still trying to figure out the pants situation. Leather chaps have become an option. Unflattering, cheap, made-in-a-Pakistani-sweatshop chaps. I’m not proud of this, I certainly am not, but if I take a tumble on the bike I’d really like to keep the skin on my legs, and I’m too tall and skinny to fit into most reasonably priced textile motorcycle pants. The budget for this trip is a slim sum, no thicker than the clip I keep my money in. Hard choices must be made. If I have to brave a few truckstops in black leather chaps, well… I’d rather not think on it, actually. Nevermind.
*spontaneously stolen from a restaurant in Portland, Oregon, and a completely other story. Apologies to the restaurant that woke up to two missing chairs, whatever you were called.
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