26 Quotes by Sasha Martin

As I stand there, staring absently at the stirring pot on the wall, I remember Greg’s words all those years ago: No one could create peace for me. Yes, I did the tough work to heal on my own. But in the process I’d missed the finer point. An insular life is just another wall. The realization rushes over me: There can be no peace without community. Real community – people to count on, and who could count on me.

The drinking, the skipping school – all of it – was about regaining some sort of control. That night I felt there just might be enough magic in the world to help me through constant upheaval and loss. What I didn’t realize was that the more I drank, the less in control I was.

There are mysteries buried in the recesses of every kitchen – every crumb kicked under the floorboard is a hidden memory. But some kitchens ae made of more. Some kitchens are everything.

But I wanted to cook. I needed to cook. Mom had raised me with the implicit understanding that cooking is the answer to all life’s vicissitudes – not just the antidote to boredom, but also a way to ward off the darker realities of grief, separation, and loneliness.

There are many dreams in a lifetime – dreams that flourish or flounder for reasons much more complex than can be pinned down to any one person or situation.

Over the years, the kitchens I grew up in and around continued to draw me in, like a moth to a flame, as though I might recapture whatever innocence I’d lost in that warm, fragrant space.

And like a grieving spouse who sleeps in the shirt of a lost loved one, I thought that by cooking – handling ingredients again, breathing in their aroma as they bubbled – I could somehow be reunited with my mother again.

A name alone cannot keep a heritage alive.

You need a name for every stage of your life. Butterflies don’t go by ‘caterpillar’ forever.And they certainly don’t go by ‘pupa’ one second longer than they have to. You, my dear, are no longer a pupa.