Yesterday a friend sent me a text: “When is life ever going to get easier?”
I wrote her back: “When the dishes are done?”
(The dishes are never done. That’s the joke.)
In my home we have a dish rule. It’s not wash your own dish. Hat tip to the granny who gave me that advice three kids ago. “Everyone lives here. There’s no such thing as my bed and your bed; my dish and your dish. They are are all OUR beds, our dishes. We make our beds, wash our dishes. Everyone helps with everything.“
No, The dish rule here is everyone washes the number of dishes that they are years old. So I do 42. The big kid does 14. Next one does seven, and is aware that soon she will have to start washing eight. The little one does four. The very little one doesn’t have to do any yet. This actually just about adds up over the course of the day, 67 dishes, give it take a few gunky pans no one wants to wash.
I like to do dishes in the morning. (Yes, that means I go to bed every night with a counter full of dirty dishes. The horror.) First thing. Before anything else. Well, second thing because first there is tea. I don’t think I’m physically capable of starting the day without a cuppa, but I’m not sure because I’ve never actually attempted it.
When I became a mother, I was rattled by the sudden lack of time to meditate. I had, previous to giving birth, enjoyed a silent start to my day. A friend and mentor told me to remember that my cushion-sitting days were over for a while. They’ve been over for 14 years now, and I’ve probably got another 5+ to go before I’ll be back to closing my eyes. Practice mindfulness, she said. Find stillness in the chaos. There’s plenty of chaos around here in which to look for stillness. At least there’s that. Maybe some single moms of four manage to carve quiet time out for themselves, but I have yet to solve the riddle. So the dishes are my meditation. Sometimes I light a candle. Sometimes there are deer in the meadow. Always my Pisces heart fills as I feel, really feel, the hot water.
This morning I noticed something in the beautiful chaos of clean dishes. There is the dish, the thing and the person. Here’s what I mean...
That tin held muffins baked with pumpkin purée that a dear friend baked and gifted me.
The big glass jar held milk from some lovely neighbors.
The innumerable cups held water that flows from the land and quenched my little one’s thirst. Over and over and over again.
Water that also washed those dishes.
No, the dishes aren’t done. Life is still hard in a lot of ways on this day after election day. But the water is flowing and the deer are in the meadow.
Is there a daily “chore” that you’ve found pleasure in, or that you might want to play with making sacred?
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