Blended

by Abigail Batton Hickman

The silver blender is unquestionably the most dear. It has seen the teens through their smoothie phase, it proudly offers its services to the complicated and exacting process of homemade spaghetti sauce, and, most recently, it assists me in my milkshake habit.

It is a newer routine and one I likely cannot linger in. Once my buttons and zippers begin to protest against the expected expansion, I will shun my nightly focus, but for now, the blender and I eagerly meet each night, a welcome rendezvous. The kitchen is quiet by then, all the fuss and industry of dinner preparation and clean-up is complete, the food wrapped and stored, the dishwasher pulsing water in its rhythmic, toneless way.

Despite the age of the kitchen and its appliances, it is new to all of us who live here. This house has known us for only a year. It has been a busy year. One that has seen a marriage and then a merger.

The silver blender sits in its permanent home between the toaster oven and the sink. Out of the three of them, it is difficult to determine which is the oldest. The toaster oven boasts numerous bread bag labels that have melted onto the top, an eternal testament to toast that was warmed inside its antiquated belly. The sink is a simple affair, no fuss, no depth, no garbage disposal. While the kitchen trio may share the camaraderie of old age, there is no question which of the three holds the most value.

My husband and I leapt into our marriage with enthusiasm reserved for those lucky enough to connect in ways rich in meaning and, occasionally, beyond reason. We both tried this connection before, carefully constructing our younger lives to fit the pre-cut puzzle pieces handed to us by our culture’s expectations. After years of some serious wrestling and cajoling, we realized that the picture we desired could never be realized with the pieces we had been given. Tired of puzzling, we left our first marriages but not without a handful of additional characters.

He with his two children, and me with my three smashed ourselves together to form a new kind of family early this year. We merged. A year has been long enough to smooth out some of the domestic discomforts coming from living with strangers. We have shifted from polite to petulant, a good sign I think.

The kitchen is the common room, the equalizer. It is the only place we gather collectively. The children prefer their own private spaces in the house, away from the burden of public into the exhale of private. But the kitchen is the net which consistently catches us up into one space, at one time.

Multiple verbs are performed here. We laugh and argue and burn things. We’ve been known to dance poorly and to roll our eyes in profound disapproval within the walls of our kitchen. And we blend.

It is dark outside by now, winter pushing itself against the kitchen window. The wind finds the window’s imperfections and blows in, subtly moving the curtains which stubbornly dress themselves in summer flowers. I pull the blender closer to me. I used to drag it up to the edge of the counter but soon learned its old feet leave their black tracks across the white counter. So now I gently lift it up to move it.

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Like all things sweet, I am generous in my ice-cream scoops. I fill the glass blender nearly to the top. “That seems like a lot of ice-cream,” my husband may say as he watches me wrestle out massive amounts of ice-cream from the flimsy, sticky cardboard container. He offers this mild reproach out of self-interest more than a sanctioning. He knows I will never be able to drink the whole thing and that once I am finished I will ceremoniously set the remainder on the coffee table in front of him.

My husband gives more serious attention to his buttons and zippers, heeding their warnings with swift and fastidious trips to the gym. So he takes this milkshake offering as a code orange threat to his physical welfare. He shows a nobler ethos in his remedies than he does in avoiding the problem to begin with, which is to say that he will never forsake a milkshake. I continue to lavishly scoop the ice cream into the blender, “It’s aerated, you know, the blender will significantly decrease its mass.” He wanders away, knowing its best to leave me to my craft. I add a wink of half and half and a substantial blob of Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup. And then things get complicated.

There were more of us when we first moved to this house, ate in this kitchen, learned to live within its frame. Two of my offspring do not live with us. The oldest grew up and out moments before the Big Move. But the second-born did move into this house. She sang songs in this kitchen, stirred soups on its stove. But she did not show a propensity towards blending into the whole. She was an avocado tossed into the blender. Her inner core so strongly independent, it resisted all attempts to assimilate into a collective unit. Blending can be an uncompromising action. It requires all the ingredients to change form. So the second born left the warm and mostly happy kitchen because she found no solace there.

The blender is capable of offering complete and total destruction. On its most powerful setting, it promises to “Crush” even the most unyielding solids including ice. But I do not seek destruction of my ice-cream. I want something gentler and truer to its name. I want a blending. I start off with the lowest setting “Chop”. Ice Cream is crafty. It does not easily approach the blades, but rests just above them, tentative, cautious, perhaps even wary. I push the button down for a few seconds at a time, allowing the blender to manipulate its contents, slowing settling them closer and closer to the blades. Once the chopping button has molded the ice cream into a more malleable mass, I turn it up to the uncomfortable setting of “Whip”. It seems an unsavory verb to associate with such a charming treat. But if I want a magnificent result, I must exhibit discipline and perseverance.

Because of its age, the blender whines steadily when asked to push itself in its higher settings: “Grate”, “Puree” and then, finally, “Crush”. I rarely use the “Grate” button just out of principle. But, eventually, the milkshake will require the turbo charge of “Crush”. The blender’s voice fills the air, my head. It’s electric whine sounding resistant and resplendent at the same time. Once the ice-cream succumbs completely, changing itself like a science experiment from a solid to a liquid, I shut off the machine.

The kitchen is immediately immersed in silence. Even the shadows are hushed. The contrast is startling. I look at the blender guiltily, the noise and horror of the process feeling like a crime in the suddenly quiet kitchen. I open the cupboard and pull my favorite glass cup, the little one with the delicate stem and etched design in its thin, fragile glass. Slowly, I shake and prod the milkshake out of the blender. Sometimes, perhaps in spite, it clumps out in one large united quantity, speedily filling the cup and overflowing onto the counter and sometimes even spilling out onto the floor. This is maddening as the milkshake enjoyment has as much to do with timing as texture and these spills require an immediate and thorough clean-up. Usually, though, when executed properly, the milkshake glides down to the spout and obediently pours itself into the waiting mouth of the pretty cup.

The other children, the ones who remain, have adapted to this new kitchen, this new life. They bare some scars, I suppose, from the brutality transformation sometimes requires. Our blended lives are not like a science project. We do not easily shift from one form to another. Perhaps we are not meant to. We are less blended than bended. We bend towards and around one another in accommodation to the whole.

It is a demonstration of hope. A hope that our machinations will produce something greater together than the simple flailing we expend individually. I will sigh with contentment once the milkshake is contained. I may put the blender in the sink, filling its vacancy with the cold well water that streams out of the faucet no matter how hard I press the handle away from “Cold” or how patiently I wait for hot water to appear. With my milkshake in hand, I will wander to living room, nestle in next to my husband and enjoy the fruits of collective labor, that of mine and the blender’s.