Companionable Kitchen

My kitchen has a dish-washing machine.  It is the same age as the house, and that makes it "elderly" in dish-washing machine years.  It still washes pretty well; a good and faithful beast chugging away as it sloshes my dirty dishes with hot water and suds.  However, it has its quirks.  Most notably, the top rack is no longer very firmly attached to its anchors, and that makes it nearly impossible to slide in and out of the machine.  It is fairly well worthless, and so the utility of the whole contraption is diminished.

Of necessity, my regular kitchen clean-up routine has come to involve a significant amount of "doing the dishes by hand."  When that circumstance first evolved, I fussed about it.  "Just one more thing to do; one more chore," I labeled the business of making soiled plates and pans and tableware into clean and usable items.  But time has passed, and I have fallen into the routine ... warm sudsy water, and rows of clean dishes lined up drying on my counter.  And, I have learned something that I knew once, a long time ago, when it fell to my brothers and I to clean up after dinners in our family home.  Doing dishes is both sensual and companionable.

The water is warm and soothing to tired muscles and joints.  The scent of the soap is clean and refreshing.  The bubbles tickle.  The rhythms are made for quiet contemplation, or pleasant conversation.  If there is a companion, doing the drying and putting up, then the kitchen sink becomes the site of far-reaching philosophizing.

The time required is not burdensome.  It serves as a buffer between the pleasantries of the meal, and the quiet of the evening ahead; a natural and useful transition.  I like it, somehow.

Perhaps, I will simply clean it out and let the old dishwasher be.  Let it retire.  Maybe I will become an old woman who indulges in the simple pleasure of washing her own dishes.