If the dishes had eyes, they could have told this story too.

They were piled on both sides of the sink, one of which still had leftover water from two days ago. The other side was filled with crusty bowls that would require an archaeological excavation to remove the ancient, dried remains of homemade vegetable soup, cake batter, and macaroni and cheese.

We stared at each other: I at the dishes, and the dishes at me.

What did I do? 

I turned my back on the mess in the sink, and instead, I cut a slice of cake, an original creation by Youngest Daughter. It was a blueberry, cream cheese layer cake, a spectacular summer dessert fit for a full-page photograph in a cookbook. She said it took three hours to make, and she used three sticks of butter.

That was yesterday. There sat the batter bowl, stacked precariously on top of a hodge podge of plates, silverware, and cups. I kept an eye on it while I ate every dense and lush bite of my piece of cake. 

Next, it was time to write. I jotted down a title and stared out the window.

Nothing happened. Sometimes inspiration doesn’t come, so I sit and I wait. I pray and I wait. I write nonsense words, and I delete them. Then I wait some more.

Sometimes I get up and do a chore. Sometimes I go walk the dog. But usually I slog through, like digging for buried treasure. Even then, sometimes all I find is a wet boot or an old tire. Gold is hard to come by.

Especially when the dishes are in the way.

Sweet Husband came home, computer in tow. An evening of billing awaited him, his most despised business task, yet he too felt the subtle draw. He did the same thing I did when I got home; he walked over to the kitchen sink, and he stared down at the assortment.

And then, he made the first move. He began to put away the dishes that were on the dish drainer.

His explanation? “Just something else I can do to avoid the billing work a little while longer.”

In our house, there’s nowhere to hide either the dirty or the clean dishes. If you haven’t figured it out, we don’t have a dishwasher, except the ones God gave us–our hands. We usually keep this job checked off the list, for Sweet Husband is a champion dishwasher. His passion for the task is unmatched. He has Good Housekeeping blue ribbons and medals hanging in the recesses of his mind, for all the care and attention he gives to the pre-cleaning of the dishes before they even go into the hot, soapy water.

But sometimes it gets away from us, this necessary task of washing the dishes.

I guess it can all get away from us: doing the dishes, billing, writing. For some, it might be washing clothes, cleaning the litter box, or bathing the dog.

Or maybe it’s visiting our family and our neighbors or even making a simple phone call. We think, “Might be a good idea to check on old so-and-so.”

But we then forget to send even a short text.

It’s not laziness, and it’s not temptation. It’s just life. It’s evening activities that keep us away from home. It’s having an amazing cook of a daughter who has a passion for Master Chef and Nailed It but not cleaning up afterward. It’s making appointments and keeping them. It’s filling our schedules and checking off boxes.

And our lives get away from us.

Working together, we pushed through the chore, and time slowed down. He cleared the dish drainer, and I began the sordid task of emptying the sink, rinsing the dishes and setting them on the countertop. Filling the sink with fresh, sudsy water was like seeing the sun rise after a sleepless night, a hopeful shift in circumstances. 

I washed, and he rinsed. I wiped down the countertops, and he dried the dishes.

Before we knew it, the job was done, yet one pan remained. He placed it in the water, saying, “I think that’s the last of it.”

So it was for the dishes. So it will be for all our tasks one day, the good, the bad, and the procrastinated.

I rinsed and dried my hands, knowing what my next job would be.

It was time to write.

And oh, how the words flowed.