There is a golf ball in one of my kitchen drawers. It’s in my kitchen towel drawer to be exact…the drawer to the left of the kitchen sink, at the end of the kitchen counter. The golf ball is a Nike golf ball and it has been in that drawer for a long time…I mean for years.
Why is there a golf ball in my kitchen towel drawer? Well, I don’t remember exactly how it got there originally. It was either because I took it away from then-much-younger brothers who were playing with the golf ball in the house and I was pretty sure that if the indoor golf ball play continued, something was either going to get broken or someone was going to get hurt when one brother decided to throw it at another brother. Or, it may have ended up there during a mad cleaning dash when guests were about to arrive at our home.
Both are plausible reasons why the Nike golf ball landed in the kitchen towel drawer. But, as I mentioned earlier, the golf ball has been in that same drawer for a long time…for years.
Every once in a while, I pick the golf ball up as I place clean kitchen towels into the drawer. I turn the ball over in my hand. Then…I place the golf ball back into its designated space…in the kitchen towel drawer and I push the drawer handle until the drawer closes snugly.
The golf ball reminds me of young brothers, sometimes with sister included, running through our house… giggling, yelling, wrestling, chasing, being underfoot, getting scolded to take their play out of the kitchen where I might be busy cooking a meal or washing dishes or putting groceries away or talking on the phone. The brothers, and sometimes sister, usually left the kitchen much as they entered…giggling, yelling, wrestling, or chasing.
Squeals and screams would come and go, into and out of our kitchen, throughout days and over months and years. A door frame leading from our kitchen into the laundry room marks the heights of the brothers and the sister who passed through that kitchen.
The kitchen is quieter now…noisy conversations conducted by deeper voices descend upon it less frequently. But, every now and again there still may be quick-paced footsteps heard in that kitchen, accompanied by giggles and yelling and even some chasing.
I treasured the kitchen traffic then…and I treasure it now. And as a memorial…I keep a golf ball in my kitchen drawer.
pieces and ponderings 