Sharing the ups and downs of life over a sink of dirty dishes

The party had ended, the guests gone home. I flicked on the light in the kitchen, and immediately wished I hadn't. Dirty dishes sat everywhere. My husband laid a warm hand on my shoulder and whispered, "It isn't as bad as it looks."

I sighed and reached across the counter to fill the sink with water.   Steam began to rise in spirals and bubbles frothed at my fingertips. Weariness melted away as I lost myself in the rhythmic rinsing, dunking and washing of the dishes. It's always been this way for me.

The cleaning of the plates and clearing of the mind

Dishwashing therapyI don't want to glorify my dishwashing - it isn't exactly as cleansing as a brisk walk in the wilderness. But, in a busy life (sometimes filled with frustration) it might just be the next best thing.

When left to my own solitude to scrub away the grease, it's as if I am also filtering the debris that clouds my thoughts. Solutions to problems appear and calmly rearrange the chaos, as if they've been waiting for me to relax and find them.

Some of my best memories of family dinners revolve around the cleanup afterward. When I was a kid, we did our best to scurry out of sight before being nabbed for dish duty. But once there, placed upon the chair in front of the sink, we sang silly songs and listened to stories we might not have otherwise heard. Grandma fed me nibbles of dessert as she walked past, my mother turning away smiling, pretending not to see.

As I grew and invited boys for dinner, dishwashing became the ultimate test. If he stood to help when my mother pushed her chair back, he passed. If he lingered and needed to be nudged to help, he forfeited future invitations.

My husband passed the test on his first visit to our house. I remember holding my breath as my mother stood to begin the clearing. I looked over at my dad, praying feverishly that the heartthrob sitting beside me would know, somehow, to rise and get to it. He did...

Dishwashing - free, effective therapy

No whining allowedWe've ended many parties with our guests rolling up shirt-sleeves and pitching in. We've shared the griefs of our lives, washing dishes when we didn't want to return to a crowded room full of people. We've reveled in the miracle of life as hands reached out to touch a baby kicking within. We've swung tea towels over our shoulders as we held each other to cry and laugh.

I own a dishwasher now, but I still prefer the old-fashioned way, the way my mother did it, and her mother did it: a sink full of warm soapy water, a cotton dishcloth and my own two hands.

I still prefer washing dishes to almost any other chore. I can step over piles of laundry, pretending not to see. I can systematically avoid rooms screaming to be vacuumed. But I'll always be the first to offer to wash the dishes.

When my own children were younger, washing dishes slowed our evenings down. As their hands swished the cloth through soapy water, they told me things in side-by-side conversations that they'd never share if asked.

In a complicated world full of challenges that have neither beginnings nor endings, dishwashing reminds me that not all jobs are complicated. Some are simple and easily completed - plate by plate, glass by glass, pot by pot. Order comes from chaos.

If only the rest of our lives were this simple.

Dishwashing brings joy and conversation and closeness after a meal. In the process, a kitchen thrown into disarray over the course of the evening is folded back into place again.

I have never seen an automatic dishwasher do that.

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