when my day turns out just so and i am given the gift of a peaceful hour in the kitchen after dinner, i wash dishes and meditate with the warmth of the water and the scrubbing of the plates and bowls and cups. i stare out the window, which is situated over the sink, overlooking the expanse of our remarkably secluded city backyard, through the tall trees of the neighborhood, toward the west.
as the sun sets in every season, i have enjoyed elaborate compositions of cloud and color, watched winged things - both bats and birds - take to the open air, and seen squirrels scurry across utility lines, tree branches to garage roofs and back. these sights are constants, though in every season, a different early evening landscape appears - winter's icy grey crispness against shimmering silver and pink clouds; the visible dewy softness of new green grass under glassy skies in spring; the thick indigo blanket of summer's humid dusk, full with cricket song; and fall's rough textures and ochre hues under elaborate branches of bare trees.
i lived in a townhouse for some time with a view over the kitchen sink of only the wall's fake brick veneer, painted white and peeling. to get any green at all i would have to crane my neck, when washing dishes, to look through the back screen door to the private, shaded courtyard beyond. a large maple stood sentry just outside my back porch, and despite being downtown, raccoons and possums came to visit there more often than i expected. the courtyard was my island of nature among a sea of city asphalt, and my upstairs office overlooked it as well - a treehouse view, up in the maple boughs, which i loved and appreciated daily. but not over that kitchen sink! ... i might have hung a landscape painting if the walls had not been stubborn concrete and prone to crumbling.
my parent's kitchen window overlooks a wild quince bush, and beyond it a gratuitous strip of grass between houses, then a large old magnolia tree near a main road. even now, my mother gives me the weekly activity report from this narrow corridor - the bush seemed alive with one hundred tiny birds today; a rabbit came to nibble on the peonies and stayed quite awhile; the magnolia is blossoming and its heavy blooms are weighing the branches down. i have a lot of memories of my parents washing dishes together - one of their very, very few cooperative efforts - and, in each, i see in my mind's eye one or the other of them staring out that window as they talk, mom washing, dad drying, taking what peace they could from that small view.
