When I’m in a kitchen and the fridge isn’t covered in lists, notes, magnets, photos, and various other stuff, I get disconcerted by it. The front of our fridge (and in other set-ups, the sides of our fridge) is kind of like the family bulletin board. Family photos from Christmas cards and the really special magnets always have the place of honor, front and center. Various lists — grocery, library, egg count, who’s borrowing what, etc — also occupy eye-level places. Useful magnets, and often things like drying plastic bags, will be closer to the ground. Sometimes we have those magnetic poetry words out, and various phrases or poems. We had magnetic castle building blocks, and about once a week someone would come up with a new configuration. When grandkids came along, their artwork started going up.
In my family, as it has been for countless generations, the kitchen is the heart and hearth-fire of the home. It’s the center, the warm comforting embrace. It’s the nucleus that pulls us in and binds us together. The touchstone in our sometimes-busy lives, where we can fall into familiar patterns and share our adventures. And the front of our fridge is often the physical aspect of that: the silent witness, the shared journal. So when I see a fridge that’s bare of these markers of family life, I’m left to wonder, and to hope, if they, too, have a place for the hearth-fire in their home.
In Which I Experiment with Blogging. 