Until my kitchen matches my heart.

For nearly two years I have been repeatedly stuck with an intense urge to through and break every dish in my surroundings. I want to hear china shatter, I want to watch glasses splinter, mugs crumble, my favorite blue bowls explode into unrecognizable pieces, my favorite glass jars erupt into dangerous shards.
But not once, not even the time most appropriate and deserving of such a reaction, did I unleash on my crockery. Teapots and saucers, sushi plates and condiment dishes, noodle bowls and cereal bowl, shot glasses and wine glasses, tea cups and coffee mugs, collectors steins and tart pans. All safe forever guarded by the invisible umbrella of propriety. Never to meet their untimely end against a wall or to leap to their deaths only to know the existence of God upon contact with the heinous brown tile of my Shanghai apartment. Neatly wrapped up, sold for a song, or given to neighbors and friends. Alive and well to live another day and serve another meal, quench another's thirst and satiate another's craving. Beautiful, elegant, practical and fun, personal, historical, ancestral and bright. Alighting on new shelves among new family and none the wiser; how close had you just come to a premature doom, victim to my pent-up rage, frustration and guilt? Too close I fancy. And yet, never close enough. For more than two years later the urge still floods me from time to time, while walking under leaning oaks, climbing the stairs or gazing off into the distance. It takes the strength I possess to clasp what ever is in my hand and not dash it against the sidewalk. Just to hear it tinkle and glisten into a hundred little pieces. Is that so bad, just to want to destroy something to watch it take shape again as something else. To see my own strength exhibited before me and not always be on the proper side of things.

I have seen it in movies and on T.V., when either out of rage, celebration or bliss a dish or wine class is tossed into the fireplace with so much emotion and relief; ecstatic. Yet all mine is pent-up. Fenced off. Neglected. Hedged-in. abandoned. Redirected. Ignored or covered-over.

It is like I have been pretending since that moment, when I first felt the eruption and quieted the fumes. I wonder if I will ever be right until my kitchen matches my heart.