the calling
[Comments, critique and brutal honesty will be much appreciated, esp. if you could say something about the diction and overall structure and direction. The seesawingbetween casual and not-so-casual is not working very well here, but i'm kinda at a loss about how to fix it. Suggestions welcome.]There are people who expend vast reservoirs of energy searching for their dream vocation, the One Calling that will help them fulfil their purpose in life. Some find that purpose in helping others, while others revel in the cut and thrust of intellectual challenge, and yet others find fulfilment in the creation of beautiful things.
i think i've found my calling. i could spend my lifetime doing the dishes.
This has nothing to do with a love of domesticity, a penchant for orderliness, or even a cleanliness fetish. It's about instant gratification, pure and simple. You start with a teetering tower of greasy, gunky dishes, perhaps with mashed-up pasta and fish-skin and gooey melted ice-cream clinging to the off-white porcelain, and proceed, plate by plate, spoon by spoon, to soap and rinse and dry, or, if you're too lazy for that, to soap, rinse, and tuck each plate snugly into its appointed slot in the plastic drip-dryer, before finally rinsing out all the forks, spoons and chopsticks in a clattering crescendo that climaxes in a foaming whirlpool gurgling down the vortex of the kitchen sink.
Then you scoop clear the sink of the remaining debris, scrub it vigorously with clean-scented, lemon-fresh Jif, and take a step back and contemplate the newly-washed dishes, each one glistening still and silent like an ancient Greek shrine, each one a testimony to our eternal struggle against the forces of entropy and our quest for beauty and grace. And best of all, this process takes little more than a few minutes, or over an hour at most, if you are washing up after a fairly elaborate dinner party.
Doing the dishes is a good way to make yourself useful at a party, especially when you haven't contributed much in terms of food-provision or entertainment. It is also a good excuse for zoning out after the exertions of an extended period of social interaction, when you feel that your stock of jokes and small talk has run dry and when your facial muscles start to ache from all that smiling. Even regular, everyday dishwashing has its rewards: it allows you time to collect your thoughts and sieve through the events of the day, sorting them out and finding the links between seemingly disparate ideas and occurences - all while doing something useful and essential. Best of all, you get the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of your labour almost immediately, and oh! what a contrast between what comes before and after - making this the most immediately gratifying of household chores, and probably even more immediately satisfying than most of the work we do in our professional lives.
When i set up my own home, one of the things that is definitely not going to be on the list of kitchen-appliances-to-be-bought is a dishwasher. Never mind the potential savings in terms of time and energy - i cannot do without my daily dishwashing spa-treatment. The convenience may just kill me.
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posted by eothen @ 10:54 PM
3 Comments:
wow! You can come over to my place anytime!
The development of ideas is clear and straightforward, which is a good thing. It's exactly the sort of thing I'd want my students to write, which may explain why I found it a little school-ish, though you may have expressed it as "seesawing between casual and not-so-casual".
I had a bit of difficulty wading through the words in the very long sentence in the third paragraph. If you dive into it and savour each description as it comes it's quite appealing (like diving into the dishes, perhaps), but from an overview perspective it looks messy (and in that way it's just like the dirty dishes too!). I don't suppose there was anything clever going on there but it might have just worked.
The fourth paragraph was a bit of a let-down coming after the third. Where there was a touch of almost childlike glee ('gooey', 'gurgling') in the latter, the former I think tries a little too hard with the Greek shrine idea. But that could just be because I'm not familiar with Greek shrines.
The more pensive penultimate paragraph actually helps to stabilise the essay after the excitement of the previous paragraphs, so that's fine.
And I like the closing line. Short, sharp, witty, and yet true not just for dishwashing but for many other things in life as well.
yo boko,
i think you nailed it in that first paragraph - it's school-ish, and lacks sophistication.
the long sentence in the 3rd paragraph was very much deliberate - i'm sorry if you don't like it but i think i like its length. it's meant to kinda imitate the whole washing dishes process - i took well over an hour to do the dishes at that particular party.
the juxtaposition of childlike glee with the greek shrine image is probably not working - too jarring and no particular reason for the jarring-ness.
you like the 2nd last para? interesting. i thought it was the weakest of the lot.
and yes i am rather fond of that last sentence. it's there to stay. :)
will be looking this over when i get my life back... er... whenever that is. thanks for your comments!!
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