dished

dished (disht), adj. [pp. of dish], 1. dish-shaped; concave. 2. farther apart at the top than at the bottom: said of parallel wheels.

There it is. The word of the week is “dished.” And unfortunately, since this is an old dictionary, it is not the past tense of “dish”: to gossip, to give the lowdown, to talk smack, etc. I will consider other ways I want to explore this word during the course of the week, but for now, I will be honest about something.

I really really really hate doing the dishes. I know that many people don’t like to do household chores, dishes being one of them. The lovely Buddhist monk and poet Thich Nhat Hanh talks about being present to your life, even when you are doing things you would rather not be doing. I remember him asking, Why would you wish your life away? Don’t wish away the moments when you are doing the dishes. Instead, be present during them. Now, I love him. I think he is a wise, spiritual, profound man. But I have to say, I have tried to be present doing the dishes and my mantra, inevitably, becomes, “I hate doing the dishes. I hate doing the dishes. I hate doing the dishes.”

I have thought about why. Part of it is because I have a small kitchen, with not much counter space, and thus doing the dishes is cumbersome. I also do not have a dishwasher so I have to scrub and scrub by hand. But I think the heart of it is that I like to get things messy, but I do not like picking up after. Cooking and baking = fun. Cleaning up after = no fun. Eating a delicious, beautiful meal= fun. Returning to the kitchen to scour a pan = not fun. I have a hard time relishing in the process of cooking and eating and then returning to do the work of cleaning up. Problem is, I don’t want to clean up later either.

So, dishes. They aren’t my favorite, but I am working on it. And from the picture of my kitchen, you can tell that, today, I dished.