Thanksgiving

Another morning in another unfamiliar kitchen. I open all the cupboards three times to find bowl, cup, tea, memory of the last place shifts over in my head to make room for this.

I like staying in someone's house, I feel bits of their identity cling to my skin, a daughter's painting, a framed poem, mismatched spoons from someone's mother, grandmother.

I like a kitchen stocked with sugar and flour and not a single meal in a can or a box. I bring those in from outside. I remember a time when I cooked from scratch, when I ground the wheat to make bread, when I boiled the carcass to make stock before making soup, and I loved every quiet step. I might have inhabited a house like this, had I taken another turn on the road.

This is where I am now. I sleep in other people's houses, in hotels, on futons or air mattresses or king-size beds. I bring in little ready-to-eat meals or simple cooking and try to erase my tracks when it's time to move on. I have time with only myself and I listen to silence or the people in the next room or the dog barking outside.

I am shedding the things I thought I couldn't live without, every day something new I find I can live without, I can thrive, I am becoming light and feel as if the next step I take could launch me into crackling air.