Tung Oil

My kitchen smells like Tung oil, which is what they use to stain the thick rims of pool tables. It’s just now starting to feel like “my” kitchen, and I’m slowly getting used to Atlanta being one of my homes. Usually, the intersection of Virginia and Highland Avenues smells like frothy smog soup, loaded with chunks of sizzling burgers and sprinkled with coffee grounds. My street smells eternally delicious.

But the peppered smoke from the coffee shop and the burger joint, and even the cries of Falcons fans shooting from screened patios of sports bars, are muffled by the ancient yet chemical scent of Tung oil. It’s busy burrowing into the wood of a table I built with my boyfriend’s dad, turning it to the color of jovial, sunbaked barrels. We crafted the table from termite-ravaged cedar and pushed it against the window of the skinny kitchen, where it looks directly into a curtained kitchen of the adjacent apartment building. I hope they eat facing their window, too.

I’ve decided to soak into the city, which is different from waiting for a place to soak into me. My support system here is small and fractured, but firm. Yet I haven’t called on many people. There are still maps I need to hang up, blankets that don’t have shelves, and I’ve fashioned convincing internal excuses for why I haven’t been to the art museum. Robby says I’m being too hard on myself, citing a demanding restaurant job and just two weeks of residency under my belt, but I’m anxious to start the burrowing process. In a shocking new move, I want to put down some sort of root. I want to burrow in deep and bake to a homey hue.

Robby left the kitchen windows open for hours to air out the Tung oil scent. To him, the air drips with thick paint. I’ve decided I like it. It smells like geraniums and glorious rot.