Boys and girls, this is what a good personal essay looks like:
My first kitchen was very small, but then so was I. For my first two years I was an only child, and the world of this small kitchen revolved around me, and life was good, very good.
My parents worried that I needed a companion. To ease their mind, I asked Santa Claus for a puppy dog. I got a sister. I stopped believing in Santa Claus.
Adding messy insult to injury, my little sister turned into a dunker. In our small kitchen there was no room for a messy dunker. When my sister dunked her toast in her hot chocolate, we all were splashed. Six inches away from me, a slimy butter-oil slick would spread across the top of her hot chocolate. Bits of butter-coated toast floated in the slick, like dying seabirds caught in the wake of a ruptured oil tanker.
Continue reading Donovan Kelly’s "The Kitchen" in Monday’s Washington Post.
Tags: freelance writing, inkthinker, kristen king, personal essay, washington post, donovan kelly
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Yes, that IS beautiful. Thanks for the tip, Kristen :)
Concurred. Did anyone else think it was a nod to “Those Winter Sundays”? http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/those-winter-sundays/
Now that you point it out, absolutely. Can’t believe I missed it, actually. Thanks!
kk
Proof again that simple prose is more powerful than busting out all the stops to get the reader’s attention. Quiet brilliance.