I got all my boyhood in vanilla winter waves around the kitchen stove.

He lived with his mother, father and sister; had a room of his own, with the fourth-floor windows staring on seas of rooftops and the glitter of winter nights when home lights brownly wave beneath the heater whiter blaze of stars--those stars that in the North, in the clear nights, all hang frozen tears by the billions, with January Milky Ways like silver taffy, veils of frost in the stillness, huge blinked, throbbing to the slow beat of time and universal blood.

Buds in the snow
—the deadly fight
between two birds

I would take my kitchen apart. I would completely clean the stove and refrigerator, and take the dishwasher apart. I know parts of a dishwasher nobody ever sees. I'd tell the family to stay out of my way and don't make crumbs.

Has it ever befallen you, my readers, to become suddenly aware that your conception of things has altered -- as though every object in life had unexpectedly turned a side towards you of which you had hitherto remained unaware? Such a species of moral change occurred, as regards myself, during this journey, and therefore from it I date the beginning of my boyhood. For the first time in my life, I then envisaged the idea that we -- i.e. our family were not the only persons in the world; that not every conceivable interest was centered in ourselves; and that there existed numbers of people who had nothing in common with us, cared nothing for us, and even knew nothing of our existence. No doubt I had known all this before -- only I had not known it then as I know it now; I had never properly felt or understood it.

I am in love with my La Cornue custom-made stove - it's a dream to use and my favourite part of the kitchen.