What if I list what it takes to get dinner on the table? Not simply the cooking. That’s where you find me again. (Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four. Part Five, Part Six)
Sarah Ruhl’s book 100 Essays I Don't Have Time to Write is one of my favorites, especially the opening essay “On Interruptions.” I return to it when I need to remember this: “At the end of the day, writing has very little to do with writing, and much to do with life. And life, by definition, is not an intrusion.”
Make sourdough toast in a cast iron skillet only big enough for one slice. Cover half moons of avocado in Tajin and salt, my knees still creaking. Watch the Mourning doves and grackles digging for bugs in the grass gone to seed. If I ran out the window I’d go straight down Palm Drive, it either dead ends or begins at my house.
Instead, run circles in my house: Checking that my oldest kids are cleaning up after breakfast, checking that my 5-year-old is dressed, checking that the baby is petting the cat gently. Pause. Make coffee. Drink it and read a few pages of Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney. Let my mind wander.
Perhaps the cyclical nature of chores is why working from home feels out of sync with the ‘real’ world. The glow of linear progress doesn’t filter through the blinds. When the kitchen is near and one is always eating, cleaning up, or working, everything is work, nothing is work.
In 2012, I worked in a newsroom and yes, the deadlines were insane, the bosses were borderline, the hours were late. But – I walked to get subs at lunchtime with a friend. And – When it was much too late in the day to be drinking coffee, we’d shoot each other a look above the cubicle walls and dash off to Starbucks, yapping about the day’s drama.
My coffee cup is empty. I plunge into answering emails, stretching my body, wiping the section of the counter that’s invisible to youthful eyes. Catch the clock – time to eat again. Walking to the kitchen to make lunch doesn’t have the same vacation from my problems vibe, but at least there’s better food. Thinking too long about all the damp Subway sandwiches I ate makes me gag.
Heat olive oil in a pan while shredding two steamed potatoes. (I keep cooked potatoes in the fridge as a rule, making a batch nearly every week.) Slide the small mountain into the hot oil and season with salt and pepper. Don’t touch till the bottom is crispy. Attempt to flip the whole thing and break the circle. Salt and pepper again and place on a plate. Keep the pan hot and fry three eggs at a time. Place the hashbrown in the center of the table and dish out eggs. Eat before my runny yolk grows cold. My kids chatter about Naruto and who eats fast or slow and friends they want to see.
Check the clock. We have forty minutes until our appointment and cleaning the kitchen takes twenty, and finishing eating takes ten. Linear progress beckons.
Stack, wash, wipe, sweep.
Heap the clean, wet laundry into a basket and steel myself for the gust of noon heat. Hang the washcloths, dish towels, bathroom mat, shower curtain, and flat sheet on the clothesline. Remind myself to buy a clothespin bag, as I do each time I hang up the laundry inefficiently. Bending and tossing each pin into the basket.
Living outside the prescribed linear progress of an office is a way to see oneself up close. Depending on what I’m seeing, my reaction varies.
Assemble ourselves into the minivan. Drive to the tutoring appointment blasting the alt channel. It never fails to make me laugh hearing my kids belt out Boulevard of Broken Dreams. Hearing Green Day (and The Black Keys, Nirvana, The White Stripes) on the alt channel in 2025 is also funny. What does alt even mean? Someone who writes about music should tell me.
Drop the oldest two off. Decide if more coffee is needed – if yes, walk to Seattle Espresso, if not, go to the library. Watch my youngest two wander around the kid’s section – making felt pizzas, playing on the computers, arranging dollhouse furniture, watching a stranger have a meltdown. It happens. I bury my head in my email for ten minutes, then put it away. Make small talk with other moms about schools and day care, the high prices, the impossibility of parenting. The talk doesn’t remain small for long.
After an hour, herd my kids out of the fun back to the van. Pick up my son, who’s done earlier. Walk to the coffee shop, wander through the sports supply store and the consignment shop where we stay until the little girls get too loud playing hide and seek amid the clothing racks.
Walk back to the tutoring center and sit in the waiting room, invariably exhausted, spying on peoples’ footwear. One mom always wears expensive looking plastic sandals with a big, hard cream-colored bow. The rest are a blur of sneakers and Birkenstocks. (I listened to the Courtney Love episode of Fashion Neurosis and donated my birks after a long love/hate relationship.) The tutors, mostly in their early-mid twenties, wear Sambas, Docs, no name flip flops, chunky Nikes, all white Reeboks. My favorite tutor is a young woman who dresses exclusively in black and maroon. Today she’s braided her jet-black hair and wears all black Converse high tops.
Home again, sweatier than when we left. We eat something cold, watermelon, or a smoothie, or popsicles, and the older three lay around. My youngest needs me, full attention, so I sit with her or lay her down. Sometimes she naps. I always want to sleep. But dinner looms, or entices, depending on the day and I’m sifting through the pantry in my mind.
We will eat shells with the easiest sauce, and leftover roasted butternut squash and onions. There will be some frozen Costco meatballs heated, too. Once dinner is made in my mind, it’s halfway done.
The baby doesn’t fall asleep, so we’re in the center of the house again, circling in from play to tidying to rest. On the clothesline, the laundry is crispy. Unpin the flat sheet, shower curtain, bathroom mat, dish towels, and washcloths. The linens froth over the side of the basket and smell like nothing.
Fill a pot with water, salt it, walk away. Open a 28 oz can of whole San Marzano tomatoes. Slice four cloves of garlic. Place them in olive oil, not too hot. No basil today. Michael unlocks the front door and the little girls cluster around him, barely letting him move. They follow as he puts his bag away, takes off his shoes, the locus of their attention moved off me, onto him.
We meet in the kitchen as usual, leaning against each other as we yap about the mundanity of the day. Swapping personal news, giving logistical updates, gauging how tired we feel.
Water boils, in go the shells, for long enough to walk through the house putting laundry away.
Drain the shells, serve up bowls for the youngest ones. Make my bowl, and pour two glasses of wine. Add parmesan to the grocery list. Dawdle at the table as Michael and the kids wash and dry dishes. Listen to them relay our day. Hearing someone else tell the story of the day is like watching a movie in a different language.
Wipe the counter one last time and turn off the kitchen light.
Lay on the couch and watch Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron. Listen to this genius of a filmmaker talk about how difficult it is to draw with wry resignation. He says he must open the lid to his brain or the result will be boring.
I think of this series as a way to cheat boredom. But sometimes I worry it’s just boring. The point of it is to turn my chores into words, then pile up and arrange those words until they’re a gleaming sculpture to entertain myself and you. Spinning straw into gold.
I think words are gold already, but one can’t buy groceries with verbs and nouns – and definitely not adverbs.
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