Thursday, September 21, 2006
And now, a guest blog from the real writer in the family, my wife Silvia:
September 1, 2006 Ankara
The kitchen sinks surprised us by their small, shallow size. An oval about the shape and dimension formed by your arms if you cupped both elbows with your hands, then added half a hand of depth, cut out of the room-length marble countertop. Modern stainless steel and all, but we were still confounded by how one hand-washed a large dish load in such tiny sinks. With effort we awkwardly managed washing the dishes from our first few meals but still sensed we had something to learn about this. Last night, I saw, beheld how dishwashing should be done, regardless of the sink, place, or time. With rhythm, and beauty, and a prayer.
Our hostess had withdrawn to the kitchen to stack and sort and organize the task of cleaning up after the feast of a small evening meal. When I came in to help, it became obvious she had developed a system, which my intrusion would only interfere with. So I willingly sat, at her insistence, to drink my cup of çay, or tea, and watched her, hoping to find out the secrets of utilizing order and space, soap and water. We shared no spoken language in common, yet she made much very clear to me. Ah, large plastic bowls filled with soapy water and placed on the counter near the small sink soaked silverware and served to dunk-soap and scrub the cups and plates, which she set aside on the countertop for rinsing later.
Her hands moved deftly, with grace, amid the rows of glasses and stacks of her finest china, which I had seen her extract from a hard-to-reach cabinet when she had just as handily set the table earlier. It is no wonder that in this culture of innumerable occasions for çay, a lifetime of setting, serving, drinking from, washing, and handling the traditional fine, hourglass-shaped tea glasses, multiple times daily, would encourage one to develop the necessary grace. I tell my children that here in Turkey, we must learn to be more delicate and graceful around the trays of tiny tea glasses and saucers, tiny stirring spoons, sugar cubes, and little bowls of finger foods. Our hostess had refined these abilities; it showed in her hands and movements, setting the table, serving food, and now, doing dishes.
Standing there, her back partly to me, she revealed only her busily washing hands amidst the sudsy waters, her bare swollen feet on the softly woven rug, and the oval of her face framed by a loosely wrapped scarf. The traditional Muslim dress, can one call it? Her long skirt and long sleeves and loose scarf left only face, hands, and feet exposed. After a few weeks of seeing this traditional dress code interspersed with “modern” dress and Western styles, it no longer even struck me. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to notice her attire if the call to prayer hadn’t drifted in through her open patio door at the end of the kitchen.
The call came as she rinsed the glasses. By now she had placed an empty bowl in the sink under a low stream of cold water, flowing lightly enough so it would take some time to fill the bowl, perhaps forever and never. And in this slowly running time, she would hand-cup with her right palm some of the water from the stream over to the soapy glass, which she held in her left hand over the sink but to one side of the bowl. So that this cupping, splashing, rinse-off water would not impurify the bowl water, always filling unceasingly between the hand-drawn outflows, never overflowing. Then the pre-rinsed glass would get dunked in a methodical way in the water bowl, again with grace, forward, backward, within, around, and out. Another glass. Cupping, splashing. Dunk down, back, inside, around, and out. I became entranced, watching, hearing, feeling the movements.
Then hearing her words. Mumbles to me. But answers, I believe, to the awakening, admonishing, and melodious call to prayer, the ezan, echoing out from the minaret heights of the local mosque, for the last of five times that day and at the beginning of all Muslim prayers: ‘Allah is great! There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet’. For a second, my breath held, I wondered if she would stop washing dishes to pray, then realized I was witnessing a prayer. All of this. The grace, the movements, the water, her replies to a higher call. And in this moment of recognition, of awe, at the beauty in something so mundane as doing dishes, I wanted to become one of the glasses she was rinsing, to be a part of the flowing rhythm of her kitchen. Of Creation. How I needed to be cleansed, rinsed, and purified, by her hands, the water, and her prayers!
Tears came to my eyes, unbeknownst to myself, until the interruption of her daughter—a ponytailed, blue-jean-and-T-shirt-clad 20-something—walking into the kitchen and through my line of sight caused me to blink, and breathe. And in my momentary feebleness, unable to leave my trance completely and try to explain what I was seeing, one could only come up with what might have sounded like a faint-hearted apology for sitting there amidst all this movement and work. “I was just watching your mom do the dishes; maybe you know how good that can feel, as a child watching your mother wash the dishes.” Then wondered how it might feel for my children. Sitting across from each other at the small kitchen table, we smiled in agreement, each in our own understanding, while the dishwashing continued.
Copyright 2006 by S.Z.Strich
September 1, 2006 Ankara
The kitchen sinks surprised us by their small, shallow size. An oval about the shape and dimension formed by your arms if you cupped both elbows with your hands, then added half a hand of depth, cut out of the room-length marble countertop. Modern stainless steel and all, but we were still confounded by how one hand-washed a large dish load in such tiny sinks. With effort we awkwardly managed washing the dishes from our first few meals but still sensed we had something to learn about this. Last night, I saw, beheld how dishwashing should be done, regardless of the sink, place, or time. With rhythm, and beauty, and a prayer.
Our hostess had withdrawn to the kitchen to stack and sort and organize the task of cleaning up after the feast of a small evening meal. When I came in to help, it became obvious she had developed a system, which my intrusion would only interfere with. So I willingly sat, at her insistence, to drink my cup of çay, or tea, and watched her, hoping to find out the secrets of utilizing order and space, soap and water. We shared no spoken language in common, yet she made much very clear to me. Ah, large plastic bowls filled with soapy water and placed on the counter near the small sink soaked silverware and served to dunk-soap and scrub the cups and plates, which she set aside on the countertop for rinsing later.
Her hands moved deftly, with grace, amid the rows of glasses and stacks of her finest china, which I had seen her extract from a hard-to-reach cabinet when she had just as handily set the table earlier. It is no wonder that in this culture of innumerable occasions for çay, a lifetime of setting, serving, drinking from, washing, and handling the traditional fine, hourglass-shaped tea glasses, multiple times daily, would encourage one to develop the necessary grace. I tell my children that here in Turkey, we must learn to be more delicate and graceful around the trays of tiny tea glasses and saucers, tiny stirring spoons, sugar cubes, and little bowls of finger foods. Our hostess had refined these abilities; it showed in her hands and movements, setting the table, serving food, and now, doing dishes.
Standing there, her back partly to me, she revealed only her busily washing hands amidst the sudsy waters, her bare swollen feet on the softly woven rug, and the oval of her face framed by a loosely wrapped scarf. The traditional Muslim dress, can one call it? Her long skirt and long sleeves and loose scarf left only face, hands, and feet exposed. After a few weeks of seeing this traditional dress code interspersed with “modern” dress and Western styles, it no longer even struck me. It wouldn’t have occurred to me to notice her attire if the call to prayer hadn’t drifted in through her open patio door at the end of the kitchen.
The call came as she rinsed the glasses. By now she had placed an empty bowl in the sink under a low stream of cold water, flowing lightly enough so it would take some time to fill the bowl, perhaps forever and never. And in this slowly running time, she would hand-cup with her right palm some of the water from the stream over to the soapy glass, which she held in her left hand over the sink but to one side of the bowl. So that this cupping, splashing, rinse-off water would not impurify the bowl water, always filling unceasingly between the hand-drawn outflows, never overflowing. Then the pre-rinsed glass would get dunked in a methodical way in the water bowl, again with grace, forward, backward, within, around, and out. Another glass. Cupping, splashing. Dunk down, back, inside, around, and out. I became entranced, watching, hearing, feeling the movements.
Then hearing her words. Mumbles to me. But answers, I believe, to the awakening, admonishing, and melodious call to prayer, the ezan, echoing out from the minaret heights of the local mosque, for the last of five times that day and at the beginning of all Muslim prayers: ‘Allah is great! There is no god but Allah, and Mohammed is his Prophet’. For a second, my breath held, I wondered if she would stop washing dishes to pray, then realized I was witnessing a prayer. All of this. The grace, the movements, the water, her replies to a higher call. And in this moment of recognition, of awe, at the beauty in something so mundane as doing dishes, I wanted to become one of the glasses she was rinsing, to be a part of the flowing rhythm of her kitchen. Of Creation. How I needed to be cleansed, rinsed, and purified, by her hands, the water, and her prayers!
Tears came to my eyes, unbeknownst to myself, until the interruption of her daughter—a ponytailed, blue-jean-and-T-shirt-clad 20-something—walking into the kitchen and through my line of sight caused me to blink, and breathe. And in my momentary feebleness, unable to leave my trance completely and try to explain what I was seeing, one could only come up with what might have sounded like a faint-hearted apology for sitting there amidst all this movement and work. “I was just watching your mom do the dishes; maybe you know how good that can feel, as a child watching your mother wash the dishes.” Then wondered how it might feel for my children. Sitting across from each other at the small kitchen table, we smiled in agreement, each in our own understanding, while the dishwashing continued.
Copyright 2006 by S.Z.Strich
# posted by Michael Strich @ 5:30 AM 
