Zen and the art of doing the washing up.

I did the washing up again at lunch time. Already it has become a point of contention in my new household but this does not surprise me because it has been a sore point in every household I’ve ever known.

When you have a dishwasher (we do not, the kitchen is too small) the issue is with who puts the cutlery in the right way. Who understands that hiding small plates in-between large plates will make them harder to clean.

Everyone rows about the washing up. Apart from that one girl from school who told me that her family never, ever fights but I still don’t believe her.

I quite like doing the washing up when I get round to it. Sometimes I put the radio on, sometimes I put a playlist on. The latter is harder to navigate with soapy, washing-up gloved hands when a song comes on that you don’t want. I could say “Hey Siri, skip this song.” but she doesn’t always listen.

Sometimes, like just now at lunch, I wash up in complete silence. There is no one else in the house. It is just me and the sponge and the dishes. And I’m working my way through some thoughts and day dreams and worries but it’s a lot easier because my hands are busy and there’s an important task to get done. It is not a waste of time, you always need to wash the dishes.

You can always say, if you did nothing else, that at least you washed the dishes.

People like to thank others for cooking them a meal by offering to wash the dishes afterwards. It’s the polite thing to do. When I am the chef and the host I get embarrassed that they have asked and I tell them I really don’t mind doing it in the morning but sometimes they insist. When I am the guest I get embarrassed that they have refused my offer, even when I insist, and I stand uselessly behind them in the kitchen. Sometimes you have to fight a friend to do the washing up after they have made you dinner. It’s a complicated dance.

I don’t always like to do the washing up. A lot of the time I grow tired of it. In the dynamic of my home whoever doesn’t cook does the washing up. I got into a habit of cooking the dinner every night and eventually my boyfriend begged to have a go because he was sick of having to do the dishes afterwards. It is nice to share the housework for a home that we love, even if we have different ideas about how long a dish can be left unwashed after a meal before it becomes a bit rude. (I leave them for much longer.)

It is easy to hate having to do chores around the house because they are never-ending. One Sunday spent blitzing the place does not stop the crumbs falling on the floor from the next meal, or the dust falling back into place as soon as it’s been wiped away. Housework is political. It is gendered and you have to work against stereotype and unconscious socialisation to un-gender it. Housework gets in the way of other things like creativity and relaxation. People who can afford to pay others to do their housework free up a huge amount of time for themselves. It is, as we have established, complicated.

But I do quite like doing the washing up, when I get round to it. I like the meditation. The quiet. The task that really does need doing. I like the space it makes for my thoughts.

I will always be doing the washing up. All versions of me. Hopefully I will be washing up when I am in my 70s. Hopefully I will still be taking a moment to pause and think. To stare into space. Will I look onto the white tiles of the kitchen? Or a window? What will it look out onto? A garden? A field? A city?