The Women's Kitchen (From a 9-year-old's perspective)

For as long as I could remember, my mom used to take my brother and me on weekend getaways to my great-grandmother’s house. I lived for those hour-long drives to Pasadena where I’d stare out the car window, transfixed by the wavy blur of the trees, feeling my heart light up as my mom made that final turn on Magothy Bridge Road. That street sign was my little indicator that I was just five minutes away from the homemade tuna sandwiches and ginger ale waiting for us. We naturally gravitated towards my great-grandmother’s cozy kitchen the moment she swung open the front door and kissed the tops of our heads.

I’ll never forget the distinct lemony scent of the kitchen’s freshly scrubbed linoleum floors, always sticky from the cleaning chemicals. It’s been ten years since I last visited, but I can still see the collection of woven baskets and worn-out pans lying on top of the chestnut cabinets. Attached to the wall was an old-fashioned radio that probably hadn’t worked since the 1970s. I personally loved the large bay window—framed by a blush-pink, grandmotherly floral valance—because it had the best spot to watch the rain.

Nestled snugly in the corner sat a small, square wooden table, stained oily from so many warm meals, pots of crab soup and souvenir coffee mugs. I can barely recall the amount of times that people’s hands have slammed the tabletop from a heated conversation or gripped its corners during a particularly riveting story. That table was our home base and sanctuary, where the women of my family conglomerated, wearing borrowed pajamas and speaking so candidly and unfiltered to each other.

The star of the kitchen club belonged to my great-grandmother, of course—a fiery and fearless matriarch unabashed with her frank opinions and sassy one-liners. Her daughter—my grandmother—was a calmer, more reserved version of her: a graceful woman of Christ armed with a set of immaculately painted fingernails and an unyielding devotion to her morals. My aunt would sometimes join too; she embodied the sweet and cautious perfectionist persona whose edges were softer, rounder and a bit more innocuous. Then there was her sister—my bold, colorful and hilarious mom, a vibrant blend of all their personalities.

These were the first women who I looked up to as I was growing up. When they hung out in the kitchen, they would rehash old memories while absentmindedly flipping through Redbook magazines and eating sour cream and onion chips straight from the bag. As a curious and observant child, I would sit on one of their laps and quietly hang onto every word.

Without realizing it, they were slowly introducing me to the vast and clandestine world of womanhood, a tucked-away sphere where they spoke its lady language so fluidly while I struggled to interpret as much as I could. They complained about bras and back pain. They mentioned old boyfriends. Grocery stores. A cousin who just had a baby. Doctors’ appointments. The latest shoe sale at Marshall’s. Is this what being a woman was supposed to be like? At nine years old, I stood perched on the cusp of childhood and adolescence–bright-eyed and fawn-like, not yet jaded by life’s curveballs. Slowly but surely developing my sense of self-awareness the closer I reached the double-digits age range. The barriers to adulthood hadn’t quite lowered for me, so everything I heard felt like scattered parts of a puzzle I kept trying to piece together.

Not everything discussed was so light and mundane. I’ve watched tears slide down my aunt’s cheeks when she confessed that she still wasn’t sure about the idea of going to nursing school. I’ve studied my mom’s furrowed eyebrows when she fretted over my brother’s strange behavior at preschool. But my great-grandmother and grandmother held steadfast to their anchored positions as the family’s advice-givers: blunt and deliberate, but full of heart. Fiercely loyal, they were always looking out for their beautiful daughters. One of them would always say to either my mom or my aunt, “Meliss/Jen, do you want to take this home with you?” It would be something like a Tupperware of leftover chicken or an extra sweatshirt from the closet.

The beauty of these intimate conversations lied in the way these women listened to and taught one another. As three generations of women, they witnessed each other mature through the lenses of mother, daughter, or sister. Whether coaching from the sidelines or providing a shoulder to cry on, they were active participants in each other’s lives, unafraid to hold up a mirror during some of their most transformative periods of growth.

It wasn’t until later in life that I came to see that this was what being a woman really seemed to be about: solidarity and dedication—patiently helping one another find the strength in themselves to live their most authentic lives. Being a woman meant commiserating, wiping tears from laughter and offering a second plate of food. You could comfortably fall asleep on the couch knowing that one of your mother figures will drape a blanket over you and tuck you in. You were understood, and most of all, you were never alone.

But at nine years old, I didn’t know that yet. From breasts to divorces, the kitchen conversation topics were more than idle family chatter–they were also buoyant flashes of the kind of woman I was shaping to become someday. Little did I know that these moments were deftly molding me into the likeness of my great-grandmother’s relentless commitment to honesty, my grandmother’s razor-sharp attention to detail, my aunt’s gentle sensitivity and my mom’s animated and radical sense of humor. As the little girl sitting by the bay window, I felt the burgeoning woman inside of me start to awaken.

But she hadn’t quite opened her eyes yet.