Good morning, kitchen! Goodnight, kitchen!

The power of a little light.

As always, check out the audio version of this post to hear me read this essay (you can even subscribe to on your podcast feed so it populates automatically when it goes live, by the way!). Also, scroll to the end of this post for a list of remaining tour stops so we can meet IRL!

I got the lamp at Walmart.

It was the dead of winter, dinnertime. Everything had been pitch black for hours. Bleak. I walked through the parking lot slowly, my knock-off Uggs sliding along the ice cold asphalt. I pictured myself cracking my head open and dying there, my body splayed in front of the long snake of abandoned shopping carts, or behind the truck with the MAGA flag waving from the back. I walked slower.

Our furniture would be arriving at the new house tomorrow. In the meantime, all the creature comforts that made a place feel like ours were stacked on top of one another, carefully wedged into a giant truck. I kept picturing it sitting at a silent rest stop overnight, strangers walking by, trudging through snow. All of them with no idea that in that particular truck, there was a whole life. I comforted myself with the knowledge that this feeling would only last a couple days. Soon, we’d be reunited with all our things.

I had been sleeping on an air mattress that had an imperceptible hole somewhere in it. At night, it felt inflated and firm, but I woke that morning to find Jake already gone, my hip and shoulder pressed against the cold ground, the half-inflated sides of the mattress curling around me like a taco. I stared at the wide gaps between the 150-year-old floorboards only inches from my eyes and studied the layer of dust and grime that lived there. I wondered how long it would take me to carefully vacuum between them, to deep clean each and every room. A couple days, maybe, I mused. Oh, the things I had to learn.

The kitchen was (is) a cave. Wood-paneled from floor to ceiling, slanting so much that when you put a golf ball on one side of the room it started to roll instantly. Quickly, even, zooming past. That can’t be good, I thought. But it was the darkness that bothered me the most. Light spilled through the rest of the house, but it couldn’t reach the kitchen. It was too old, so much of the rest of the house oddly built around and onto it. It’s much older, probably, than the rest of the 1863 house was dated. Early 1800s, maybe, given the low ceilings. Maybe older. All of the character shellacked away by a 1980s makeover. It was livable and spacious. Good bones (aside from the whole sloping thing, anyway). But this would all change, I told myself. Six months, maybe. A year. What I knew of kitchens was Magnolia renovation shows and Instagram fodder. What was a dream house without a dream kitchen? Without light? Without a bouquet of flowers gently resting in a gorgeous sink? I didn’t need a dream kitchen right away, of course. I wasn’t that shallow. But I did need the promise of one.

Some light would help, I decided. Lamps make everything cozier. So I drove myself to Walmart in the winter darkness, gathering supplies to make the house feel warmer. I picked up the lamp at random. A shade that looked like linen. A base that looked like carved wood. Affordable. It would work. It would do for now. A month, tops. A placeholder until I could find something better. I came home and plugged it in under a paint-chipped, bug-covered windowsill and took a step back, hands on my hips. I nodded. Better. But also, like everything else in the room, temporary.

It’s been more than 18 months since that day, and the lamp has yet to move. Each morning and each night, my husband and I turn it on and off. Good morning, kitchen. Goodnight, kitchen. It’s perhaps the most consistent item in our home, still in the first place we put it. It glows steadily next to the sink, happily illuminating its flaws. Other than the slope in the floor (my husband figured that one out), everything in the kitchen has remained exactly the same as when we bought the house. It’s still dark, and no matter how much times I clean the 50-year-old stovetop on the island, it remains coated with a layer of ancient residue that I try not to think about. When guests come over, I sometimes steer them away from this room, the one where we have done the least amount of work. I think about how it will look someday. Sometimes, I walk around it and I talk through the changes out loud, the host of my own renovation show (audience: no one). It will be great one day.

And it will. I believe that. I no longer have any real timeframe for these things, but when the day does come, I will be ready. These days, I either fall asleep dreaming of writing projects or of home projects. My way of manifesting something, I guess. I picture myself slicing bread from our favorite bakery at a long, antique work table that serves as our island, the wood burning stove cracking behind me, a cold glass of water in front of me, a song I love playing over a speaker. I fantasize about ridiculous things. A dedicated beverage fridge. A nugget ice maker. An Italian espresso machine I don’t know how to use. One of those water bottle fillers that they have in airports. Brass pot fillers. I dream of more reasonable things, too. A hood vent. A trashcan I can hide away. A pantry filled with the various glass jars I’ve thrifted over the years. I dream of all of it. I love the dream. Sometimes I think the this is the best part of home renovation, the only spot where absolutely anything is possible.

But more and more lately, I find myself in our kitchen and looking around at it with wonder. I am both in it and 10 years (20, 30, who knows?) in the future. One day, I realize, I will try to remember this and it will be hard to picture it exactly. I will struggle to recall the days of Jake and I bumping into each other while I cooked dinner and he put away dishes, the way the space manages, somehow, to feel perpetually crowded despite all its space. I will miss the steady rhythm of dreaming, of walking around the space with my coffee each morning and seeing possibility. I will probably not long to remember the ancient stove top, the caked-on remnants of thousands of meals, but I might wish for this time again, when we’re still getting to the know the house. Still settling into this part of our lives.

I will likely forget the trip to Walmart, the way I had been avoiding sitting in the house, staring at blank walls and empty rooms and wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. The lamp will end up in another room, then a closet, then a basket of things to be donated to Goodwill. And then one day, years or decades from now, it will be gone from my life entirely. I will forget the way it bookended our days for so long.

I try to think about all of this now when I walk into the kitchen and wish it was different. When I find myself frustrated with old house renovation as a whole, or when I desperately wish for things to be done. I look at the lamp and I think of it fondly. An old friend. A steady, constant presence. A thing that was once a temporary placeholder that now brings me so much comfort. I turn it on each morning and off each night and mark the days.

Good morning, kitchen! Goodnight, kitchen!

I watch the light click on and off from somewhere in the future, and I smile.

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I am lucky enough to still be on tour for my debut novel (see below!) this summer and I would love, love, love nothing more than to meet some of you IRL. More information here:

• REHOBOTH BEACH, DE // Friday, August 16 @ 1-3 p.m. Meet & Greet / Signing at Browseabout Books.

• AVALON, NJ // Saturday, August 17 @ 7 p.m. Speakers at Surfside with Carola Lovering and Colleen McKeegan.

• CHICAGO, IL // Thursday, August 29 @ 6 p.m. In conversation with Megan Aruta of the_spines on Instagram at Three Avenues Bookshop. Details here.

• PORTLAND, ME // Saturday, September 14 @ 6 p.m. In conversation with EK Sathue of YOUTHJUICE. Back Cove Books. Details here.

• MOORESVILLE, NC // Thursday, September 19 @ 6 p.m. Mooresville Public Library.

• TIVOLI, NY // Saturday, October 26 @ 12-5 p.m. Books & Brews, a grown up book fair event at Lasting Joy. Details here (more to come).

I also have a Gainesville, Florida event in the works for early October… so, stay tuned!

PS: One last thing before I go… you can order my first novel NOW! I appreciate your consideration, time, and support immensely.

A portion of August’s subscriber proceeds will go toward the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is currently working to build, enforce, protect and defend legal protections for reproductive rights around the world