self-portrait tuesday -- time

the days blew by and, having missed a few pics of the kitchen and her terrible dishes that ever need doing, i've not a full month of self-portraiture to document here, which is probably for the best. sundays were hard to remember as we were at church at ten a.m. saturdays were hard, too, because at the promised time, i was whirling a scarf around and jingling bells with kindermusik students. other days were just busy and though we certainly ate, the sight of the kitchen was more than the camera could handle. therefore, i've got a week's worth of dishes to represent the month entire. most of them are dirty, because, well, in all honesty, most of the time the sink is full and waiting for someone to come and clean it.



the dishes and the doing of them are a very real part of me. they may not define me as a person, but the hours spent in thought, a kind of post-dinner rumination, have birthed ideas and plans rising up through steam and bubble that may not have come when i was applying myself to more studied, more valuable work at my desk, in a chair, nose in book, fingers clicking the latest spinning of story.

if the kitchen is not clean then the rest of the house seems to me to be a hovel, the clutter pillaring around us, necessity pooling at our feet as we frantically search for waders. as freakish as it may seem, though, if the kitchen is clean, the dishes washed, the sink shining, the floors crunch-free (no thanks to jude . . . ), if everything is put away and ready for the next round of buzzing, then the rest of the house is liveable, though perhaps lived-in, and living in it without constantly thinking of cleaning it is possible.

one would think, given this admission, that the kithen would be cleaner more often, no?