Every morning she faces the sink, contemplating a pile of dirty dishes with a pleasant sense of anticipation. Contrary to the negative opinions she expressed so loudly as a child, she has, in recent years, discovered that dish-washing is an activity that gives more than it takes.
Her exploration of the art of dish-washing began shortly after the end of her relationship with a man who never did the dishes. In the first glowing days of their love, she didn’t mind, happily creating an orderly home for two to share. After a while, however, she harbored a growing resentment, begrudging him every dirty sandwich plate and beer mug. Eventually, her housekeeping frustration exacerbated by numerous other acts of non-participation on his part, she threw him out.
Not long after he was gone, she began to realize the hole his departure had left in her life. During her days of cooking and cleaning for two, she had fallen into the habit of straightening up the kitchen after their evening meal but leaving the dishwashing until morning. She rose at daybreak and, before anything else, plowed through a sink full of dirty dishes. Although she would never have admitted it to him, she came to enjoy this early morning chore. It was a quiet time, alone in the dawn light save for for the birds greeting the day outside her kitchen window. But now, living tidily alone, she washed her few dishes as she used them and this small change in habit colored her entire lifestyle. She found herself barreling through her days. Jumping out of bed in the morning, she dove into one activity or another, setting the pace for her waking hours. She missed her quiet mornings with the dishes.
In an attempt to restore balance to her life she began to leave her dinner dishes for the morning ... but she was bachelor-cooking; there was hardly anything to wash. So she fixed more elaborate meals, using a separate bowl for salad, then adding a bread plate, but it was still a meager stack in the morning. Finally, throwing aside her squeamishness at the thought of dishes sitting in the sink all day, she saved three meals worth of washing-up for the next sunrise. This tactic, coupled with initiating a sit-down breakfast, at last produced a satisfactory amount of fodder for her morning meditation.
It was at this point that she began to seriously study ways in which to improve her experience. She already knew the dishes needed to be scraped and neatly stacked the night before so that her first impression of the morning wasn’t one of mess and chaos. As well, the sink and dish rack had to be empty and clean, a pristine canvas waiting to be filled.
After experimenting with various dish pans she discovered a round bowl to be the most satisfying container; mirroring, as it did, the shape of the earth. Dish water swirling around the perimeter of the large blue enameled bowl she finally settled on mimicked the tides. A diligent search produced a dish soap that not only left her dishes shiny and squeaky clean but was biodegradable, soft on her hands and, most importantly, produced a satisfying amount of soapy bubbles.
With all the ingredients in place, she could now turn her attention to the ‘zen’ of dish washing. After many months of feeling her way into the intricacies of the task, she has arrived at this most pleasing morning ritual.
First, as in any zen practice, she has to bring herself to full awareness. Facing the sink, she closes her eyes, inhales deeply, and allows all thoughts to drain from her mind. Opening her eyes, she is aware only of herself, the sink, the dishes in front of her. Nothing else exists. This, at least, is the theory. In practice, there are usually several errant thoughts still flying around in her mind. On occasion, some looming problem will absolutely refuse to be displaced ... but this doesn’t daunt her. She has learned, through practice, that the act of dish washing can reduce these miscreants down to size, if not evaporate them completely.
She turns on the stream of hot water that will fill her container. Adding a judicious squeeze of soap, she watches as a cleansing foam appears at the base of the steaming waterfall and slowly grows to cover the surface of the blue bowl. The sparkling pool emits tiny pops and crackles, inviting her hands to enter. She dips them in and lingers for a moment, allowing herself to enjoy the soft warmth and feel the effervescence against her skin.
Then, carefully, she picks up the cutlery and lays it into the bowl to soak. These she knows to be the transmitters of that which nourishes us and, all too often, that which inflames our bodies; almost always consumed by choice. Tenacious bits of yesterday’s blessings and misfortunes stick to the utensils, unwilling to be relegated to the past, needing to be gently soaked in order to let go.
The dish rag, a textured piece of cloth with a graceful flower design, lies close at hand. The idea of cleansing her world with flowers appeals to her. Dipping it into the bowl, she works the soft cloth with her fingers until it is pliant and heavy with soapy water.
First she washes the glasses, those vessels that carry to our lips the element of which we are mostly made up: water, in its many forms. She tenderly wipes the cloth over the outside surface of each glass and then, bunching it, swishes it over every inch of the interior as she turns the glass with her other hand. When all the glasses are sitting in the sink, covered with soapy patterns, she takes immense pleasure in rinsing them one by one beneath a stream of clear water, watching as they emerge crystalline and shining, ready again to hold the stuff of life.
Now for the mugs. These containers she considers enigmatic: the carriers of hot decoctions of herbs, roots and berries - potions traditionally used for healing and, in the common practice, drugging the mind and the body. She washes each mug with reverence, being sure to reach the cloth down into the deepest, darkest corners of the well; lingering in the mystery.
The next step is a little tricky. She needs to pull the big plates out from under the smaller plates to be washed and racked first, thus providing a base pattern around which to artfully arrange the other dishes. In fact, she sees plates and platters, of all sizes, as the steady ground on which we stack, and often over-stack, those ingredients with which we sustain life and continually re-create ourselves. Dipping each plate into the warm pool, she swishes the cloth over it, first circling the rim and then moving in toward the center, carrying soft, soapy water around the plate with each revolution. She always enjoys watching the colors of yesterday’s palette blending with the soap bubbles, running down the surface of each plate until it is washed clear with a steamy rinse, revealing the original pattern.
Bowls also carry building blocks of life but being round, she believes, they facilitate and enhance the process: that which passes smoothly from bowls into our bodies seems to come from a deep place and to nurture something at the heart of us. She finds them soothing, with a womb-like quality, and washes them slowly, with appreciation. After they are rinsed, the bowls contribute a pleasing, rounded element to the dish rack, smoothing out the angular lines of plates stacked all in a row.
And there, waiting its turn in the bottom of the pool, is the cutlery. Each one receives individual attention, enveloped in the soft cloth, every surface rubbed clean before a shower under sparkling, clear water.
(written circa 1998)
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