11. You Shook Me

[gunwithoutmusic]

"The Spice Rack"
1,230 words. Approximate reading time: 6 minutes, 9 seconds. Audio version here.

Up until yesterday, there was a spice rack on my kitchen counter. The spice rack comprised eleven glass jars suspended by twelve metal hooks arranged in a three-by-four grid. Each jar was unlabeled, and each jar (including the missing twelfth jar, I assume) was filled with expired spices and covered in a thin layer of dust.

I was painting my small galley kitchen over the weekend and I found myself having to move piles of junk from one counter to the other in order to have enough space to tape and paint underneath the cabinets, and having to then move those same piles of junk from the second counter back to the first in order to have enough space to tape and paint underneath those cabinets. I feel like the biggest part of what made me so tired when I was finally finished painting was moving that damned microwave, four-cup coffee maker, one-cup coffee maker, and dish rack back and forth and back and forth. And we certainly can’t forget about that spice rack. That spice rack is what got me thinking about everything.

I remember when my husband and I were living in our one-bedroom apartment, nearly six years ago now, and I told him that I would absolutely love a spice rack, to make things easier on me when I was cooking. So he ended up getting me the aforementioned “floating jar” spice rack as a gift, probably for my birthday, but maybe for Christmas, although I suppose the actual occasion doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he gave me this nice, thoughtful gift, that I told him I wanted and I would totally use. And I did love it when I unwrapped it and pulled it from the box.

I spent the first day filling up every small glass jar with different spices. Even though the jars were unlabeled, when I originally set up the rack, I foolishly told myself, “I am an expert cook; I can tell what these spices are by appearance alone. And, worst case scenario, I do have a nose and can just smell them.” Now, I have no idea what spices are in those jars. I must have known at one point, but the years have left the spices flavorless and odorless, so I really don’t know just from looking at it if that’s basil or marjoram, or if that’s smoked paprika or just regular paprika, or if that’s garlic powder or onion powder (although, I doubt I really would have been able to tell the difference on those two anyway).

That spice rack, expired spices and all, traveled with us from our one-bedroom apartment to our house, and just sat on the kitchen counter, collecting dust. There were times when I would look at it and think, ‘Maybe I’ll clean out those jars and fill them up again with spices I’ll actually use,’ but that always seemed like a lot of work, and besides, I already have a better system for my spices. Half of them are placed on a lazy susan in the cabinet with no real order to their placement, and the other half that couldn’t fit on the lazy susan are just shoved in the back of the cabinet where I’ll never see them. It’s really a much better way to organize spices than in clear, unlabeled jars.

There were other times where I would look at the spice rack and think, ‘I’d love to just get rid of this thing,’ rather than let it torture me with its very existence every time I walked into the kitchen, but it was a gift from my husband, and so of course serves as a symbolic representation of our entire marriage. So if I throw that stupid spice rack that I hate in the trash, it basically means I’m throwing my entire marriage away. Then again, if the spice rack is a symbol for my marriage, and I hate the spice rack with every fiber of my being, doesn’t that mean something too?

Can I really blame the spice rack when things go wrong in my life or in my marriage? Of course I can, though that’s probably not fair. Maybe I should stop being so symbolic; it’s just a spice rack, after all, and has no real motivation to make me fail in life. But I’m not interested in fair. I’m interested in blame-shifting. So I spent my weekend moving this spice rack back and forth between counters, getting more annoyed by it every time I saw it. I kept thinking about just tossing it in the trash to free up some counter space and to finally stop obsessing over it, but then I also kept thinking about what my husband might say, seeing it in the trash can.

He might say, “Oh, are you getting rid of that gift I gave you? What a surprise; you can’t hold onto anything that reminds you of love.”

Then I might say, “Don’t be melodramatic; it’s just a spice rack.”

Then he might say, “But that spice rack is a token of my love for you and of our marriage, and you’re prepared to just throw all of that away, for what? A little counter space?”

Then I might say, “You’re absolutely right; I’ll put this spice rack back where it was and think about possibly using it at some point in the future.” And then I would put the spice rack back where it was and continue never using it.

So really, was it worth all of the trouble involved in throwing it out, I found myself wondering as I slapped another coat of gray paint on the wall behind the refrigerator. It certainly is just as easy, if not easier, to just let the spice rack sit there and judge me.

But then I further found myself thinking (after all, what else was I going to do while tucked up behind my refrigerator painting an entire wall with a two-inch brush) that maybe I was ascribing thoughts to my husband that weren’t really there. And honestly, it’s just a spice rack. It shouldn’t be a big deal. I hung onto it for years, and I did get my enjoyment out of it at one point, so it wasn’t like it was a wasted gift or anything like that. After all, how long should I be expected to hold onto things that aren’t really bringing me joy anymore (or are actively doing the exact opposite of bringing me joy)?

So I decided to bite the bullet. When I was finally ready to put the kitchen back together after pulling up the last of the tape and giving the counters a good scrub, I picked up that spice rack and dropped it into the trash can, mysterious expired spices and all. And I’ll be damned if the kitchen didn’t feel just a little bit lighter and brighter in that moment, finally letting go of my worries and fears and just doing something that I knew would make me happy.

And when my husband came by, and saw the spice rack in the trash can, he said, “Oh, you’re getting rid of that spice rack I gave you? That makes me a little sad. But you enjoyed it when you got it and you got lots of enjoyment out of it already, right?”

I nodded my head and said, “Yeah,” with a bit of a smile.