Where do I go when I need solitude?

#bloganuary22

It might sound funny at first, but… the kitchen 🙂 For me, the kitchen has always been a place that denotes warmth and cosiness; where I can take a break and reenergise myself (which sounds quite ironic, now that I think about it; it’s generally supposed to be the place for most tiring manual labour in a household😀 ).

I do need solitude quite often- I’m sure most of us do, even if we don’t realise it- but very rarely is that out of reasons stemming from negative or counterproductive thoughts. For me, it’s more accurately described as ‘bliss of solitude’, like Wordsworth puts it, in that charmingly simple poem, ‘Daffodils’ (the last stanza, to be exact; and that very stanza is the reason this poem is one of my favourite pieces of poetry to this day- it’s beautiful and ever-fresh).

Mostly, I just need solitude to gather my thoughts a bit and organise my tasks. Or to simply get a clearer perspective of, or better approach to, a task at hand (or in plans)- that’s something you can only do by viewing a problem from a distance, i.e, by giving it a backseat in your mind and coming back to it some time later. I always feel, just as absence makes the heart grow fonder, it makes the mind think sharper 🙂 Well, that’s when my kitchen serves me best- for ‘reuniting’ with a problem that I had temporarily dissociated myself from… in solitude. The kitchen always feels to me like my very own space; a source of both comfort and confidence, where I am at peace with myself.

And now as I was writing this, I started wondering if there were any witty quotes by any well-known people about kitchen and warmth 🙂 I looked it up on Google, and right away I found some heart-warming, point-on words by Ralph Lauren!

“Our kitchen is warm; it’s who we are. And it has everything. Honestly, I could get rid of the rest of the house and just live in the kitchen.”

My thoughts exactly! This is what I expended so many words above to express 🙂 Make space for a nice chair or stool and a cozy little table, make a cup of coffee (or better yet, chai… if I talk about myself), grab your laptop- and there you are, all set to live in your kitchen!