Let me show you how I do the dishes
“Don’t flush every time you pee,” Jim says as we reach the bathroom portion of the welcome tour. “Maybe just every third or fourth time.”
“Unless you’ve been eating asparagus,” Sharon adds with a giggle.
It’s Day 2 of my adventure as a wwoofer on the Northern California coast. I’m sitting on the wooden wrap-around porch of the house that Jim, Sharon, and many other hands built together over the years to face the forested valley that now lays before my eyes.
Upon my arrival I was welcomed with the small town special: a warm hug and a cold beer. The three of us had been chatting over email for a few weeks (it feels worth mentioning that they have a shared email address), so a lot of the get-to-know-yous had already been covered, making our acquaintance feel more like that of distant relatives than of strangers. Immediately I jumped in to help prepare dinner, the ingredients of which had been freshly picked from the garden. At the opportune moments, Sharon showed me where each utensil and pan belongs in the kitchen. As we sat down to eat, she oriented me to the table.
“Jim and I sit in these two chairs. You can sit wherever you like.” I chose the seat next to her and lifted my beer for a cheers.
After dinner we continued the tour of the house (you’ve already heard some of the bathroom rules). When the orientation continued into the music room, we stopped to go over each light switch, many of which had a backstory. They showed me how the doors close, or rather how they don’t—you have to pull some of them in a bit to make sure they latch.
I slept soundly in a bedroom upstairs by a window that, at night, covers the splendor of the forested valley with a blanket of a thousand glistening stars. Around 7:30 this morning I came down, grabbed a mug—taking care not to select either of the two off-limits ceramics that Jim and Sharon drink out of each morning—and poured myself a cup of the already-brewed stovetop coffee.
“Once you’ve had your coffee,” Sharon says, “Let me show you how I do the dishes.”
~~
What does it mean to be “set in your ways”? Now on Day 4 of this adventure, it’s a question I’ve been marinating in all morning.
Jim and Sharon have lived on this land for 52 years. They are 80 and 79 respectively (Jim turns 81 next week). They came here as hippies in the 70s and slept in a camper van down by the river with their then-9-year-old. For many years the property structures were simple, but with the help of friends, family, and more than 380 wwoofers since 2009, progress really took off. Now there are 7 beautiful, well-constructed buildings full of all the tools and trappings one might need to build and maintain a comfortable life in the coastal woods. With all that experience, you’re bound to learn a thing or two about the way you like stuff done.
Taking note of Jim and Sharon’s peculiarities in this way might give the impression that they are overly rigid or close-minded, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Instead they are warm, welcoming, open, curious, and—dare I say—happy. I get the sense that the way they do things is a result of experimentation, not of blind routine. Even now, Sharon is testing whether lettuce keeps better in the fridge while wrapped in paper, plastic, or nothing. We’re both rooting against the plastic, but as lovers of learning, we also agree not to bias the results.
This choice to pay attention to the little things—which ceramic’s weight feels most comfortable in your drowsy morning hands, or where exactly to hang the garden hose for the optimal balance between access to the beds and shade from the traveling sun—might be the key that unlocks the many rewards of a simple life.
I wouldn’t say that Jim and Sharon are set in their ways—a phrase that implies a hardening, a stasis. Rather, they are settling--an active process, a constant readjustment that allows for, or even invites, change.
~~
As a wwoofer, one is expected to work about 5 hours a day, 5 days a week. However, Jim and Sharon don’t have any projects going on right now. Though occasionally there is wood to chop and sheds to clean, mostly I have taken over the domestic duties: cooking meals, watering the garden, maintaining the compost, and washing the dishes—tasks which in no way come close to reaching the 25-hour agreement. Though they insist they’re happy to host me despite this lack of tasks, it’s hard not to think I’m getting the better end of the bargain.
When we aren’t laughing at each other’s jokes and swapping stories around the table, most of Jim and Sharon’s free time gets channeled into practicing for their upcoming gigs—since 2015 they’ve been performing covers of folk songs at nearby venues as the duo Bards of a Feather, which you can often hear featured on the local radio station on Wednesday nights. As such, I have had plenty of free time to settle into ways of my own. In the absence of Wi-Fi or cell service, this includes reading more than usual. Currently I’m working through three books: Lamb by Christopher Moore, Metaphors We Live By by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, and The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon. Since being here, I’ve finished six more: Nostalgia by Mircea Cârtârescu, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine by Rashi Khalidi, Originals by Adam Grant, On the Bright Side: The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut, and No Nonsense Spirituality: All the Tools, No Faith Required by Brittney L. Hartley.
Though each has been notable in its own way, No Nonsense Spirituality has given me the most to consider. Hartley sets out to take the best tools from science, philosophy, religion, psychology, and spirituality while leaving the dogma, control, pseudoscience, and woo behind. As an atheist spiritual director, her thesis is that all of us can access the euphoria of a purposeful life through a secular lens by intentionally customizing our engagement with the many transcendent tools at our disposal (community, story, intuition, love, etc.).
Her chapters on ritual, awe, and contemplation in particular validated the inkling I’ve had that my experience here washing the dishes has felt more akin to ritual than routine. Now on Day 8 of this adventure, let me show you how I do the dishes:
I wake each morning between 7:30 and 8. With no alarm and no cell service, there is no phone to check. After the normal bathroom necessities, I come downstairs and say good morning to my housemates, who I love. I pick out a new mug from the cupboard and pour myself a cup of the coffee they’ve been warming for me on the stove (rumor has it they rise between 4 and 7 each day). I scrunch up the sleeves of my sweatshirt, allowing the Texan in me a moment to marvel that I now live in a place which gets chilly on August mornings. I twist the drain into its locked position, drizzle the green soap on the mat, and I turn on the water. I use the spray faucet to make the soap get foamy, the way Sharon showed me. I set the silverware, wine glasses, and mugs down to soak. I pick up the dish rag and begin to scrub. I look out the window in front of me and try to remember whether I had any dreams. I gasp—a hummingbird has stopped by to visit the carnations on the deck. From the desktop in the den, Jim reads aloud to Sharon an email they’ve just received. I remind myself to feel the water, and afterward, its absence—the dryness of my hands in the moments between when the dishes are done and the lotion is applied. I take note of the song that is inevitably stuck in my head. I remind myself to breathe deep, full breaths. I scrub the wok closely—it needs a bit more attention after last night’s stir fry. I think about the day ahead. I remind myself to breathe. I scrub. Think. Dream. Breathe. Listen. Breathe. Scrub. Rinse. Repeat. When the dishes are done and the lotion is applied, I top off my coffee and come out to the deck—the hummingbird long gone—move my chair to the sun or the shade, and, pen in my hand, begin to write.
One morning when I woke up, I heard a clanking sound coming from downstairs. The prior night, Jim and Sharon hosted two extra guests: an ex-wwoofer and one of his friends, who had come back to film a short documentary about the lives Jim and Sharon have built. I assumed one of them must be doing the dishes already. I was positively giddy at the thought of coming downstairs to see my morning’s work already complete. “Oh wow—thank you so much!” I planned to say, hoping the pleasant surprise in my tone would come across as genuinely as it was felt. Brushing my teeth, I wondered what I’d do with the extra hour—whether I’d be able to sit down and journal right away, or if it would take me more time to get going. “Now don’t get your hopes up,” a voice in me cautioned. As I got dressed, I considered both possibilities—that the dishes were done and that they weren’t. I decided to be okay with either outcome. When I walked downstairs and discovered the latter, no hard feelings emerged. Just business as usual. I grabbed a mug, plugged the sink, and set the water running.
It’s funny to have been looking forward to a morning without dishes, after just having acknowledged how meditative and meaningful the process has become. It’s like walking into church and finding out your prayers have already been said for you. That’s just not how it works, is it? I would have had to find another way to say them.
Another day, Jim and Sharon were out running errands and I was at home baking blueberry banana bread, looking forward to the moment they would walk through the door and into a cloud of fruity cinnamon goodness. Have I mentioned that I love them? I was thinking at some point about how the dishes did not feel like a prayer that morning; they felt like a chore. But this, making this banana bread! Now here was my domestic prayer of the day! I was having so much fun and feeling so alive and in the moment—listening to music, mixing the ingredients, dancing around.
I had also made a mess. In front of me lay three dirty bowls, a cutting board, and two forks—one for mixing the dry ingredients, one for mixing the wet. I had made a promise to myself at the beginning of my current journal to practice wanting what I have. I looked at the dishes in front of me and I wanted to want them, even though I knew I was making more work for myself the following day. So I took out another fork to mix with. And then another bowl—I transferred the mix just for the heck of it. It was so frivolous, so liberating. Here I was, giggling to myself and feeling inoffensively naughty, like I was playing a trick on the Liz of tomorrow, except that she was in on it and laughing alongside me.
One day I did the dishes twice—once in the morning as usual, and then again before bed. I wanted to test what a day here would feel like with no dishes at all. As it happens, it was on the morning of that dish-less day that I began to type this piece. Not so dish-less after all.
~~
Now, on Day 13 of this adventure, I have a better understanding of how I do the dishes. That is, the same way I do everything else. Sometimes with great, sacred attention. Sometimes spilling over with gratitude and awe. Sometimes sleepy. Sometimes rushing. Sometimes I’ll get halfway through the pile and only then come into awareness, no idea where I’d just been. Sometimes after the sun has risen, sometimes after it has set.
A week from now this adventure will be over and another will begin: I’ll be moving into an apartment in SF with the love of my life, my moments, and my days. Our lovely little home has a stained glass window in the living room, a gazebo in the backyard, and a dishwasher in the kitchen. I don’t know which of these I am more excited for—though only one of them was in our original criteria. What I do know is that with a new place will come new rituals and new routines—each of which are part of this mundane and holy process of settling into your ways.
Unbound is a publication by Elizabeth Schasel, born during the liminal eight months between finishing grad school and returning to a corporate job. The goal of Unbound is to live small and slow—read as many books as possible, go on long walks, be silly with friends, and try to figure out how to be in the world in a way that aligns with my values. I invite you to visit the full list of entries below.
“practice wanting what I have.” beautiful words, beautiful piece! :) Julia
I meant to do the dishes. Sorry.
- "an ex-wwoofer [...] who had come back to film a short documentary"