> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://dianaludwick.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# Compartmentalize
- URL: https://dianaludwick.com/compartmentalize/
- Published: 2026-05-25T10:24:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T20:08:18.000Z
- Description: “Compartmentalize” written Memorial Day, Monday, May 25, an homage to my KIA Korean War hero great uncle, and a descent into the labyrinth of kitchen design. Poem 145 in a series of 365 poems written by Diana Ludwick in 2026. Photo, "Dead" - an acknowledgement of the hollows in our houses and our he
- Author: Diana Ludwick
- Tags: 2026 Poetry Challenge, Dry Humor, Homage, Poems, Architecture, Burden, Cavities, Cuisinart, Design, Drawers, Erase, Function, Generations, great-uncle, grief, Holiday, KIA, Kitchen, KitchenAid, Korean War, Lost Cousins, May, Memorial, Memorial Day, Monday, Of Place, relationships, Sketch, Spice, Spring, Vision, #Migrated-1792872215677, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-10-24 20:03

I spent my dark and stormy ‘holiday’ Monday  
lurking at the corner of homage and honor,   
feasibility and make-believe.  
  
On this day, I started by giving thanks.   
I acknowledge the weight, the boulder,   
of a faded promise of a great-uncle   
who I never got to meet — KIA.  
And then I turn to my sketchpad,   
time to wring the ROI out of this cloudy day off work.  
  
Designing a kitchen requires many things:  
Patience  
Vision  
Talent  
Maths  
Engineering  
Spatial Awareness  
A sense of function, of place.  
A sense of belonging,   
of interconnectivity, within a greater whole.  
  
And I have but:  
Desire  
Anticipation  
Longing  
Aspiration.  
  
And displaced grief  
from generations of lost cousins,   
absent confidants,   
and a highly decorated ghost uncle.  
  
I’m trying to put my life into drawers  
Sort out kitchen shears from baking mats  
Anticipate how many linear feet of cavities  
I need to cradle all my flatware.  
I seek to accommodate my neuroses.  
Perfection will mask the matters I am unable to process,  
despite having a 14-cup Cuisinart with three blade attachments.  
  
Which nook will carry the burden of my KitchenAid Pro?   
Where will I hide the enormous counter-top toaster-oven?  
How will I walk between the range, the island and the bin?  
When will my endless list of Instagram-able   
“must have” kitchen elements   
deplete my rudimentary architectural designing skills?  
  
No matter how many times I render options,  
I cannot figure out the corner.   
In every permutation I can conjure,  
the space under the window, where the light comes in,  
is destined to be a dead corner.   
  
I write "DEAD" diagonally across the space.   
It is lost.  
I am lost.  
I begin to sob.  
  
I compartmentalize my feelings.  
I stuff them into the drawers that  
I draw on large-scale studio sketch paper  
I erase the pain and in its place, a pull-out spice rack.  
Perfect.