When I was a kid, the last thing I ever wanted to do was wash a dish. I didn’t mind getting dirty when the time was right—mud, grass stains, whatever—but dishes? Never. Dishwashing meant pressing my skinny chest up to the sink, usually leaving a faint but noticeable horizontal watermark across my shirt. What really got to me, though, was scraping off the bits left on used plates. I wasn’t necessarily a clean freak, but compared to the rest of my family, I ranked second only to my mom.
My sister, on the other hand, was a true mess in every sense of the word. If you spoke to her for even a minute, you’d understand. My dad wasn’t far ahead—he had (and still has) a tendency to leave his clothes scattered across chairs and tables, always getting scolded by my mom for it. My brother? I don’t really remember him growing up. That’s a whole other story.
Then there was my mom—the one who cleaned before the cleaners came. The one who made the beds even when no one asked. The one who did the dishes, no matter what. She was the standard the rest of us couldn’t quite meet, though she made it look effortless.
A week and a half ago, I found myself back on dish duty. I had just finished school and moved into a small house on the Vineyard—two beds, three if you count the convertible couch, one toilet, and no dishwasher. That night, I had just finished a home-cooked meal, which, for me, felt like a luxury. Coming from boarding school, food had become just food—mass-produced, lifeless, and forgettable. I’d walk into the dining hall, stare down at the trays beneath the glass shield meant to “protect” the food, and see pinkish chicken that I wouldn’t dare eat. Too many times, I’d counted on that chicken for protein, only for it to be cold, undercooked, and disappointing.
But when my mom makes chicken, it’s different. She crafts three perfect thighs—marinated for hours, seasoned just right, and cooked with care. As dinner nears, she shouts out the countdown: “10 minutes,” “5 minutes,” “1 minute!”—and then I come down only to wait another 10. But it’s always worth it. I never appreciated her meals before boarding school. Back then, they were just dinner. But when you lose something like that, you start to miss it. And I missed my mom’s chicken.
After dinner, I turned on the hot water. It hit my hands with such peace. The night had been cold, and the warmth of the water paralyzed me with comfort. The sensation traveled down my spine, into my feet, and back up again. It brought me back to those early school mornings, my eyes barely open, throat dry, standing at the sink with my hands under hot water. Just standing there—for a minute, maybe two. It was the one time I could slow down, when my mind wasn’t racing, and I could just be.
These days, I’m rarely present. I try to stay in the moment, to enjoy today, but the fear of tomorrow always drags me forward. But that night, doing the dishes, I was fully there. Just me, the sponge in my right hand, a glass in my left. No fear. No worry. Just water and soap and movement.
I even took the time to dry everything I’d washed.
Something so routine in so many people’s lives had always felt like a chore to me. But this summer, that changed.
This summer, I started to like washing the dishes
the rule of 3 