Julia Watts's Blog: The Multi-tasking Muse - Posts Tagged "writing"
Sisyphus Does the Dishes
My housekeeping is lackluster. I say "lackluster" because it sounds more flattering to describe it for what it lacks (luster) rather than for what it is (slovenliness). I've heard many fellow slobs say they're messy because they're creative. While I'm not sure that messiness equals creativity, I do know that I'd much rather work on a chapter of my current novel than clean something that's only going to get dirty hours--or minutes--later. Writing is always new. Writing is discovery. Cleaning is(and my apologies to Albert Camus for borrowing this analogy) Sisyphus rolling that damn rock up the hill so it can roll back down again.
The one Sisyphean domestic struggle I do undertake daily is washing dishes. While I hate cleaning, I do like cooking for my family. Cooking, like writing, is creative. Unlike writing, it produces the greasy, crusty side effect of dirty pots and pans. Usually I manage the mess by cramming it into the dishwasher, but last week the dishwasher went on the fritz right after I'd shelled out for an expensive car repair. Fixing the dishwasher would have to wait for another paycheck.
A broken luxury item definitely falls under the heading of a First World Problem, so I promised myself I wouldn't complain each night when I piled the dishes into the sink and filled it with hot, soapy water. What I didn't expect was that this nightly ritual would bring back a memory about one of the reasons I became a writer.
As a kid, I ate supper at my maternal grandparents' house a couple of times a week. While Nana waited for the cornbread to brown, I'd sit in the living room watching a rerun of "Gilligan's Island" or "The Beverly Hillbillies." I'd know we were ready to eat when Nana hollered, "Buttermilk or sweet milk?" She always asked, though I invariably said "sweet." Apparently she lived in the vain hope that I'd develop a taste for buttermilk.
Supper was always a variation on the same theme: pinto beans with the aforementioned cornbread, fried taters, and a cooked-to-mush green vegetable such as cabbage or turnip greens. In the traditional Appalachian style, all items were seasoned with and/or cooked in a heaping helping of hog fat, be it bacon grease or lard. Filling to the point of rendering the eater torpid, it was a meal for coal miners but not for cardiologists.
Supper was followed by the evening news. Nana took a particular interest in celebrity death. Once, when Papaw had left the room during the news to fetch a fresh plug of tobacco, she hollered at him, "Arthur, Sid Vicious is dead!" His response: "Woman, who in the sam hill is Sid Vicious?" After the news, it was time to do the dishes.
I don't know if Nana and Papaw's domestic arrangement was spoken or unspoken, but she always cooked, and he always washed the dishes. My job was to help Papaw, though I'm sure he managed just fine the evenings when I wasn't there. Sometimes he'd wash and I'd rinse (or "wrench," as he pronounced it), sometimes the other way around.
Regardless of which of us was doing what, Papaw told stories. Nana's stories were interesting, too, but they were always dark, dealing with illness and accidents and morbidity. Papaw's were often funny, and he was an audience-centered storyteller. With me, he told stories a kid would like. He told about how as a nine-year-old boy, he kept sneaking sips from a bottle of sweet Italian wine he'd been charged with taking to his parents in the coal camp, until he got so drunk he curled up and slept in a ditch. He told about how his grandmother tripped over a cow in a dark field and went on an unexpected (by her and the cow) ride. He told about his buddy in the mines who always ate dessert first so in case there was a cave-in, he wouldn't have missed the best part of the meal. My hands soaking in the hot dishwasher, my developing writer's mind soaked in his stories.
Feeling that same sensation this week of my hands growing pruny in the soapy water, I felt the presence of Papaw by my side, rinsing while I washed, his stories still alive inside me.
The one Sisyphean domestic struggle I do undertake daily is washing dishes. While I hate cleaning, I do like cooking for my family. Cooking, like writing, is creative. Unlike writing, it produces the greasy, crusty side effect of dirty pots and pans. Usually I manage the mess by cramming it into the dishwasher, but last week the dishwasher went on the fritz right after I'd shelled out for an expensive car repair. Fixing the dishwasher would have to wait for another paycheck.
A broken luxury item definitely falls under the heading of a First World Problem, so I promised myself I wouldn't complain each night when I piled the dishes into the sink and filled it with hot, soapy water. What I didn't expect was that this nightly ritual would bring back a memory about one of the reasons I became a writer.
As a kid, I ate supper at my maternal grandparents' house a couple of times a week. While Nana waited for the cornbread to brown, I'd sit in the living room watching a rerun of "Gilligan's Island" or "The Beverly Hillbillies." I'd know we were ready to eat when Nana hollered, "Buttermilk or sweet milk?" She always asked, though I invariably said "sweet." Apparently she lived in the vain hope that I'd develop a taste for buttermilk.
Supper was always a variation on the same theme: pinto beans with the aforementioned cornbread, fried taters, and a cooked-to-mush green vegetable such as cabbage or turnip greens. In the traditional Appalachian style, all items were seasoned with and/or cooked in a heaping helping of hog fat, be it bacon grease or lard. Filling to the point of rendering the eater torpid, it was a meal for coal miners but not for cardiologists.
Supper was followed by the evening news. Nana took a particular interest in celebrity death. Once, when Papaw had left the room during the news to fetch a fresh plug of tobacco, she hollered at him, "Arthur, Sid Vicious is dead!" His response: "Woman, who in the sam hill is Sid Vicious?" After the news, it was time to do the dishes.
I don't know if Nana and Papaw's domestic arrangement was spoken or unspoken, but she always cooked, and he always washed the dishes. My job was to help Papaw, though I'm sure he managed just fine the evenings when I wasn't there. Sometimes he'd wash and I'd rinse (or "wrench," as he pronounced it), sometimes the other way around.
Regardless of which of us was doing what, Papaw told stories. Nana's stories were interesting, too, but they were always dark, dealing with illness and accidents and morbidity. Papaw's were often funny, and he was an audience-centered storyteller. With me, he told stories a kid would like. He told about how as a nine-year-old boy, he kept sneaking sips from a bottle of sweet Italian wine he'd been charged with taking to his parents in the coal camp, until he got so drunk he curled up and slept in a ditch. He told about how his grandmother tripped over a cow in a dark field and went on an unexpected (by her and the cow) ride. He told about his buddy in the mines who always ate dessert first so in case there was a cave-in, he wouldn't have missed the best part of the meal. My hands soaking in the hot dishwasher, my developing writer's mind soaked in his stories.
Feeling that same sensation this week of my hands growing pruny in the soapy water, I felt the presence of Papaw by my side, rinsing while I washed, his stories still alive inside me.
