I stare at the messy kitchen used by seven people where we live here in Auckland and see the challenge. Long ago I learned to see domestic work as a form of meditation. It can also be an exercise in gratitude.
As I pick up rubbish and put it into the large garbage bag I think carefully about my ability to walk, something I will never again take for granted. I have been in two potentially serious cycling accidents and two serious car accidents and only have three small scars. Once I also suffered from chronic gout for more than six months.
Images that have less and less electric charge in a world where so many of us need to slow down:
Water flowing over cups and hands.
Fingers an intimate needlework on dishcloths and sponges. How often do we notice our fingers?
Feet slapping against the cool tiles from table to sink to dustbin.
The tiny, frail green latticework on the window behind the pot plants slowly emerging in the mind as a praying mantis.
Sweat bulging on my forehead, skin on my hands crumbling under hot water after the fourth or fifth pot and pan.
“Oh stuff all this!” I mutter, banging down the pot where last night’s potjiekos scorch is congealed glue and stubborn as dried bird-shit. My lower back, as is its wont, begins to ache.
Back to the breathing. Remember, wherever you are, you breathe. Wherever we should be is often lost in a thousand teeming distractions, instead of the slow drawing down into the lungs’ deep wells.
That way cleaning up — other than the burned pot where I nearly lost it — is hardly tiring or a pain in the arse. It can be energising, get our creativity flowing. Instead of resisting what has to be done, celebrate it.
(Okay, enough of that, I believe in being present to the moment, but the one thing I do miss here is a cool sound system to boogie or waltz to while I clean the kitchen. Oh, anything from Queen to Tchaikovsky.)
Now the kitchen is sparkling and I stand back with pride, back aching a bit.
Marion, my partner, ambles in and says, “What a lovely job, chookie!”
Preens.
“Oh I know, I know. Don’t you think more men should be more like me?”
“Oh definitely. More men should be like you.”
(I was tempted to carry on with this little post, comment on the sexism in the domestic roles, the whimsical self-flattery, strive to be profound, but I know I can get long-winded … )
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