200 Words on the Dishes

Do you meditate?

Really meditate as a serious practice? Under the guidance of a master, a program, or even some book you grabbed used when you were an undergrad and poking around the back room of some herbalist store while the person you were dating stood with a fistful of incense and a face of uncertainty about whether the burner shaped like a highly polished little plank would be better than the one that looked like a little dude with an elephant's head?

Me neither.

But I do wash dishes. I particularly wash bottles because the rate the littlest one drinks demands the practice. Sink. Water. Dish soap. Bottles, and bottle parts. Scrubber. Towel. Time.

It is the time that goes into this that turns this from a chore into a practice that is to meditation as balled up printer paper tossed into a trashcan is to basketball. 

It’s a popular thing to say that it takes 10,000 hours doing something in a really focused way before you’re actually good at it. I have three children, and I have become actually good at it more than once.

When the littlest one is weaned, I may have to take up scrimshaw.