Nostalgia for the kitchen corner

How many summers have passed since I left that peaceful countryside to wander, traversing the years? I've been through so many hardships and storms... I've spent afternoons burying my face in my lonely hands, savoring the salty taste of desolate longing for something unclear. Amidst that emptiness and uncertainty, rummaging through distant memories... I'm startled to encounter again the pungent smell of smoke, the smell of ash and chaff in my mother's simple kitchen.

Illustration: LE NGOC DUY

Perhaps, for those whose childhood was spent in the countryside, the kitchen always evokes a feeling of warmth and tranquility, of twilight evenings when kitchen smoke permeates the air, and simple country meals are filled with the laughter and chatter of children. Mother's kitchen stirs up countless fond memories of days that will never return. The fragrant, sticky rice and the savory stewed fish with pickled vegetables on stormy, windy days, the biting cold... The pot of sweet potatoes still steaming, the flame flickering around the pot, stirring and cherishing those warm feelings.

My mother's kitchen was simple, with a bamboo door, covered in soot, and the fire burned three times a day. It was the world of my childhood hidden in a small corner. A blackened three-legged stove, a few old aluminum pots hanging on the side of the brown wooden cupboard... I remember vividly, there was also a chicken coop in the corner. A hen quietly incubated several pink eggs under its belly, waiting for the chicks to peck their way out. A clay water jar, with a coconut shell ladle neatly placed on top.

Deep in my memory, that humble kitchen holds countless recollections. Every month, my mother would cycle to the grocery store to pick up rice and food. Year-round, we ate rice mixed with cassava and sweet potatoes. Even at a very young age, I was taught to cook and take care of my younger siblings. During those long, drizzly days, cooking a pot of rice or boiling water would bring tears to my eyes because of the smoke. The image of the steamed rice with sweet potatoes is a haunting memory. How many times did the fire fail to cook the rice properly, and my mother would scold me...

There were months when we had no rice, and my children ate only noodles. That corner of the kitchen witnessed many times I sobbed because the noodles wouldn't cook properly... My youngest brother would cry miserably in my arms. There were seasons when sweet potatoes and vegetable shoots saved us from starvation, and my mother and I would give our rice to my two younger siblings... That corner of the kitchen also became my comforting companion whenever I was unhappy about something. How strange! Where did all my tears come from when I was little! Missing my father, I would stand in the kitchen corner and cry.

My mother scolded me, and I buried my face in my knees, my hands clutching chopsticks, stirring the red-hot coals, and wept! Angry at my two younger brothers, I silently scooped rice while weeping! Now, as I pass through peaceful countryside, watching the smoke from someone's kitchen drift lazily in the setting sun, my heart aches with nostalgia for that old kitchen. So many people were born, grew up, and matured around meals prepared in the kitchens of a time of hardship and toil. Now, in the countryside, there are fewer and fewer thatched houses and old kitchens. Perhaps the era of modern kitchens has also brought fewer and fewer stories of joy and sorrow around the glowing fire with the pot of sticky rice cakes on New Year's Eve...

My mother's kitchen is where we gradually grew up. It's where we all know that from a simple and humble place, our happiest days were. The noisy, glamorous city can hardly make us forget those evening meals, the wisps of smoke swirling around the thatched roof and drifting lazily in the fading twilight.

How can I forget the pungent smell of smoke, a scent that lingers on my hair and clothes for days afterward? As the years passed, and my hair turned gray, and my carefree youth became only a memory, I whispered that it was the smell of nostalgia. A smell of nostalgia deeply ingrained in my subconscious. Amidst all the glitz and glamour, I sometimes feel sad and heartbroken. I fear that one day, these simple, dear things will easily fade into oblivion.

The old house is now just one place I go in and out of. The wood-burning stove is gone... My younger brother left with the pungent smell of smoke. More gray hairs have appeared in my hair. My father also went on a long journey. Missing him, I no longer have the kitchen corner to huddle in and sob. The back porch has been deserted for almost ten years now...

As evening falls, a wandering breeze carries the peaceful scent of kitchen smoke into my heart, sending memories back to cherished days gone by. Somewhere deep within, there's a flickering fire, a glowing ember that ignited simple, sweet happiness.

Thien Lam

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/thuong-hoai-chai-bep-194464.htm