January 2000, Pasadena, California

By Mary Rose Gale

I look up at the KitchenAid mixer on top of the refrigerator. How is it possible for one machine to have so many emotions wrapped up into it? Hopes and dreams of chocolate, sourdough, cookies, meringue so light it could float away. Damn, I’m mixing my memories with food again. The KitchenAid mixer is heavy enough, though, to obliterate them.

It will have to look like an accident, of course. My narrow galley kitchen has virtually no counter space. Where else should I have stored the thing? It will not even fit in the bottom cupboards.

The mixer is a good choice for this purpose. It has to weigh at least 40 pounds. It was made in 1989, a few years before Hobart was taken over by Sunbeam. I grimace. Sunbeam. Manufacturer of cheap disposable appliances. My mother’s KitchenAid was purchased in the 70s, and my grandmother’s in the 50s. They are still plugging away. But then, they haven’t “slipped” off the top of the refrigerator.

How did I get here? I had wanted to be Donna Reed. Ha! After too many late nights with Nick-at-Nite, I actually thought that if I were the perfect, glamorous housewife, then maybe I would get that feeling of something being wrong with me to go away. I would not get divorced, either.

I was fairly young when I met husband No. 1. Or should I say ex-husband No. 1? My stipulation for No. 1 to marry me was a gift of a KitchenAid mixer. I wanted the large 5-quart model for making bread. Diamonds were incidental.

We had a good time, “1″ and I. Gourmet cooking was our hobby. Things went swimmingly until I started nagging about the drinking. Quickly, it got ugly. He and I tried counseling: my PMS was diagnosed as the root of the problem. Now he’s a prosperous recovering alcoholic. I smirk. He had to go out and buy his own mixer after the breakup.

Around the time I found husband No. 2, I had a new ideal to which to aspire: Martha Stewart. Donna Reed could vacuum in her shirtwaist and heels, but Martha Stewart could do that and then whip up the perfect meringue from her fresh eggs harvested from the chicken coop she built herself out back.

In my teens, I had wanted to have my own little farm, with nanny goats to milk and coddle. I would make cheese out of the milk and soap from the cream, bake bread from scratch, and grow vegetables. I was made fun of for these notions. After all, the women’s movement spent years trying to free women from that drudgery.

Still, the Earth Mother of my youth evolved into Donna Reed. When the two ideals of femininity merged, I was set. There she was, incarnate in the form of Martha Stewart.

That was the fantasy. The reality is that I am 32 years old, twice divorced and no closer to being a glamorous housewife, goat farmer, or Martha Stewart. Apparently, that’d take a great deal of money, patrician looks, and establishing a publishing empire.

So here I am, living in a tiny apartment, eking out a living in the middle of a sprawling metropolis licking my wounds after “2.” Thankfully, there are no children to live through the uncertainty and indignity of divorce and depression.

That something wrong with me, it turns out, is that I don’t like men all that much. To add to the indignity, I have to come to terms with the fact that I am messy. Somehow, even my mother manages to work 60 hours a week and keep an immaculate house. Either I need to set the bar lower or get off this merry-go-round.

Back in my teens, my ex-stepmother’s best friend committed suicide. She shot herself while in the bathtub. We speculated that she wanted to minimize the clean up. Have I come to this? Go back to the earth and minimize my mess as well?

Last week, the shrink got me to admit that I was contemplating suicide again. He asked me about my plan. Play this game, Honey, and get a one-way ticket to a 72-hour hold. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.

If I did tell him, the suicide would be ruled a suicide rather than accidental death. I want my insurance money to cover my expenses. I should be practical, after all. “After all, tomorrow is another day,” I say aloud sotto voce.

I reach for the mixer. Might as well make more bread. My grandmother got through her hard life somehow. My mother is still here. Neither of them dropped their prized mixer. Life is messy, and it is too close to my last appointment anyway. I am supposed to give the antidepressants a few more weeks to work.

I take the dough out of the mixing bowl to knead until it is soft as a baby’s butt. Gently, I return the mixer back to the top of the refrigerator. It will be there when I need it again.

Mary Rose Gale, a freelance writer, currently lives with her partner of five years and two cats. Having moved to an apartment with a larger kitchen, her mixer is stowed safely and prominently on the kitchen counter. She is using a pseudonym.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Monday, July 16th, 2007 | Email This Post

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