It’s a funny thing about washing dishes. There’s something about that action which is grounding, has a sense of home and reminds us of family times. In her poem, “After the Move,” my friend Carol Grever wrote about soapy hands, washing dishes and easing life’s disruption of change in her new place. After carefully placing all the forks, knives and spoons away, along with the dishes, she leaned into her newly created home.
My parents said goodbye to me on the curbside of my new apartment complex in Pomona, California. As they headed back to Colorado, no doubt a few tears fell in the quiet of their car. I went upstairs and began washing dishes. Perhaps it was to keep my tears from falling in front of them. Perhaps it gave me a sense of normalcy, a familiar routine. It certainly was functional in a most emotional time.
Years later when visiting long-time friends in Christchurch, New Zealand, I was once again at a kitchen sink. This time, I wasn’t the one washing the dishes but rather drying them. We learn how our traditions vary when living in another’s home. There I was handed soapy dishes for drying. Although I wondered about rinsing off the suds first, I dutifully dried what was handed to me.
Most likely many homes have traditions of their own. Someone cooks while another cleans. Some may find assigned weeks for washing the dishes, loading/unloading the dishwasher or other cleaning chores.
Depending on one’s work location, it’s not uncommon to find a sign by the sink – “Your Mother doesn’t work here. Wash your own dishes!”
Regardless of these formal or informal roles, dish washing becomes part of our everyday fabric. Familiar routines help ground us no matter where we live, work, or visit.
Are your dishes clean or dirty?
Martha (Marty) Coffin Evans, Ed.D, is a free lanced writer with MACE Associates, LLC. She can be reached at itsmemartee@aol.com