In 27 years of marriage, we have lived in four different houses. In 27 years of marriage with three children born in four years’ time, I have spent huge chunks of my life standing at the kitchen sink in each of these four houses. Thankfully, each sink had an interesting view.
Our first home in Sanford, NC was a little brick cottage built in 1949. Character rested in every heart-pine plank of flooring, which a kind-hearted church member refinished for us at cost when we first moved in. Thank you, friend. Those gleaming floors led into a partially updated kitchen with a double sink.
That sink seemed to birth litters of dirty dishes. Standing in place, I wrestled the tops of hundreds of sippy cups, prying apart their innards using my fingernails and some hanging-on-by-my-fingernails language. Pyrex casserole dishes soaked there in hopes of less scrubbing later. Baby oatmeal, peanut butter smears, soaked-then-dried Cheerios conspired to a concrete crust that awaited my efforts after nap time.
Elbows deep in suds, I once tried to calculate how much time I spent at that sink. But I gave up because that required math-ing, which required more of my always-leaking-out energy than I had to give. I kept scrubbing.
My neighbor’s full, graceful maple tree filled half the window’s view. It was old enough to have spread itself up and over their 1950’s ranch and most of their small backyard. Its twin sheltered our backyard.
One fall afternoon, when Eric was the P.O.D. (parent-on-duty), I dragged a lawn chair under the branches of our maple to sit under its golden-yellow glory. Looking up, I felt the wonder of creation and my tiny spot in such a grand story.
I could only enjoy our backyard tree when I was outside playing with the boys or raking up its multitude of leaves in November. I could also see it if I turned my head a bit farther than was natural as I rocked and fed our babies in the nursery, the only room with a view to that part of the yard.
But every day, several times a day over a decade, I had a perfect view of the neighbor’s maple. Standing at the sink, doing the mundane reproductive labor of washing the dishes while caring for three tiny people and serving as an eldercare chaplain and running through the many lists in my head of what else needed to be done by when, I had a glimpse of the sheer gift that it is to be alive in this world.
I remember standing with my mother, who had come up with Dad for a fall visit, and remarking that looking at that tree was like “sipping sunshine.” We were side-by-side, one washing, one rinsing and drying. As our hands worked in tandem, we both lifted our eyes to the tree and then smiled at each other. She knew exactly what I meant.
At our next house in Wilmington, NC, the sink was situated for perfect sunset viewing. Our neighbors across the street had a Bradford pear that turned a rich burgundy red that lasted, in that warmer place, long into Advent.
I stood at that sink for nine years, shepherding little boy plates that turned into big boy plates that turned into breakable, everyday adult plates. There I washed my last sippy cup. My last chunky baby spoons. Endured my last can-this-bib-be-saved maneuvers.
But, I kept the little melamine Thomas the Tank Engine bowl, which we still use for single snack servings. It survived the past two moves. One to West Virginia, where the kitchen sink welcomed me with view of the hills laced in morning mist or stained with evening’s last light. Over our six years there, the number of dishes reduced by one person as our oldest began and finished high school and then headed off to college.
And that little bowl survived the last move in January back home to North Carolina, this time in the East. Here the sink faces an ever-changing mosaic of shared-with-my-neighbor green foliage, long leaf pine, and Carolina blue skies that meld into each sunset’s palette. The last of the sun’s rays poke through the spaces between the branches, slowing the transition, saying a long last Southern goodbye.
Our second child is off to college now, too, so the washing up load is lighter most days and mostly free of plastic, besides our rotation of reusable water bottles, which are notably reminiscent of sippy cups in their resistance to being cleaned.
So much has changed in the 27 years of four sinks, each with its own gift of a view. I am still me, yet so very different from when I first stood at that sink in Sanford, NC, gazing at that glorious maple.
That first sink saw me become a minister (officially) and become a mother. I am still these things. God is still faithful.
It has been a long, hard season in my little part of the world. And the leaves will still turn, the sun will rise and set in splendor, punctuating our days with blessing and beauty.
The view from the sink never fails to say something I need to hear. Thanks be to God.
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