It’s Like Doing the Dishes

I dropped my cell phone somewhere between mile 25 and mile 28 of a four-day backpacking trip.

If you are wondering if I tried to go back and find it, you bet I did… running back through the lush Hawaiian mountains, over three river crossings, and alongside a gravelly cliff. My fiance carried my 40-pound backpack on his chest and his own 40-pound pack on his shoulders while I scrambled around like a mountain goat, desperately asking every weary traveler if they had come across an iPhone. No one had. They all had only seen the guava trees and the coffee beans and the sheer cliffs dipping straight into crystal green water.

I left my cell phone somewhere in the green forest behind me.

The frustration was there, of course, as I resigned my phone to the mountains and my blisters forced me to quit searching. I know I lost a few photos from the trip that I had desperately wanted to keep, so I wrote down what I wanted to remember instead, a practice I had done less regularly since the invention of the cell phone camera. And sure, losing a cell phone is a relatively minor thing, but for a self-employed workaholic who actually likes talking on the phone, it was a hard one. But the “why-did-this-happen-this-is-so-unfair-face-palm-self-loathing-feeling” commonly associated with these perceived injustices never hit me. Because these unpredictable inconveniences are what I have recently started calling “Washing the dishes.”

I didn’t coin this term, but I wish I had. It comes from the Secular Buddhism Podcast, one of my favorites that I find myself re-listening to regularly. I like it because it speaks about real-world things that almost anyone can relate to, like how to see intricate beauty or divine wisdom waking up early, experiencing loss, or washing the dishes.

The thought is this: we don’t wash our dishes assuming they will never get dirty again. We wash our dishes so we can get them dirty again. We live, we eat, we clean up after ourselves, and never assume that dirty dishes are a punishment for living recklessly or carelessly. It’s just part of life. And while most of us have mastered the art of accepting dirty dishes, we find ourselves resistant to the unfortunate or the inconvenient in other areas of our lives. Sickness, heartbreak, 2 pm traffic, and lost cell phones are regularly met with intense frustration. But the truth is this: the unlucky is bound to happen, no matter how carefully we live. 

My 2022 goal? Embrace the grief, the scrapes, and the hangovers because it comes with love, the adventure, and the party. Cry when the unfortunate happens, but know it will happen, and let the tears cleanse you. 

If this world is a feast, we have to plan for dirty dishes.

And you, my love, look hungry.

Xo

E

Business Stuff

From my family to yours I hope you have a wonderful holiday season. As we enter Q1 of 2022, I will have two openings available for web copy clients, so please reach out if this sounds like something that could be useful to you or a friend.

Stay safe, stay warm, and know you are loved. Here is to a bright 2022!