Washing Dishes by Hand

I've always hated washing dishes. When I was a kid and it was my turn to do the dishes, I would often hide a couple of the grimier dishes so I didn't have to wash them. When I was fifteen, I got a job washing dishes at a restaurant. I came home at night feeling greasy, feeling coated in chunks of half-eaten food. I lasted three days as a professional dishwasher, and then I quit.

But one time when I was in my early twenties and was home visiting my parents, I had a sort of breakthrough with dish washing. It was late at night and I was washing the dinner dishes alone in the kitchen while listening to Tracy Chapman; my hands worked mindlessly in the warm, slippery water. And then, suddenly, I felt alive, elated almost. I wanted to sing. It sort of felt spiritual; I wanted to pray. I also got the urge to go wandering. So, when I finished the dishes, I walked outside and wandered in the darkness around the little southwestern Colorado village. I ended up at the small park at the center of town and there, looking up at pinpoint explosions of light in the blackness, I followed my urge and chanted energetically at God. When I returned home, I felt refreshed.

Since then, I have experienced a few other transcendent moments while washing the dishes. Tonight, for example, while I was washing dishes in our silent house, everyone else having gone to bed, I realized again that washing dishes isn't so bad. That was my first realization.

The other realization that came to me as I cleansed plates and cups is one I've had many times before, but it was particularly clear to me tonight: Everyone feels misunderstood. Virtually everyone feels, on a regular basis, left out, overlooked, insecure, victimized, unloved, passed over. And this includes those who seem to be on the inside. They may even envy those who envy them. Or maybe they don't notice the enviers at all. But they don't feel understood. Nobody feels understood, but most people forget this and feel alone in their isolation and wonder Why Me?

Mine was not an original thought--many people have reached this same conclusion--but in that moment it felt an important realization and I was glad to have thought it, glad to have experienced the flow of thought, the thrill of connecting conceptions, the satisfaction of epiphany. Something about doing dishes opened my mind to contemplation, and I thought; the result of this thinking wasn't life-altering, but I was glad for the exercise.

I think part of what can make dish washing an enlightening experience is the process: through simple, cyclical, repetitive motions, I am accomplishing something, cleansing kitchen implements, making attractive that which was moments before unappealing. But more than anything, I think, it is the texture, the feel of things that causes the thoughts, like stones in tilled earth, to rise to the surface. The smooth, rounded handle of the Pyrex measuring cup, slick with suds. The stick-slide-stick-slide-stick chatter of my fingers across the wet glass casserole dish. The sloping descent of the warm red rag over the fork tines. The efficient swoop of the rag over the belly of a cream-colored bowl whose surface, like that of an egg shell, is not quite smooth. The continual re-warming of my air-cooled hands (re-inserting my hands into the water feels each time like a discovery). The almost imperceptible vibrations as my fingernails pass over the thin stainless steel salad bowls, creating a sound that is almost unsettling but at the same time clarion. This sound vibrates up my fingers and settles in the underside of my wrist.



Somehow these textures create a sort of tactile music that mixes with the motions of the task to create a meditative space, and in this space, I can think. It's not that I look forward to doing the dishes now. I don't. But the next time I do them, there will likely come a moment, when I'm about half-way done, during which I will feel enlivened, and my mind will be glad that I've decided to immerse my hands in warm, slippery water.