You know what makes a great cleaning song? – Tableau IV. Fête Populaire de la Semaine grasse (vers le soir), the fourth act of the ballet Petrouchka by Igor Stravinsky. It’s a series of lively dances, triumphal, tragic, fanciful, and full of folly – much like my kitchen in all its disasterous dimensions.
Within my kitchen, there is the toil of the ants scouring the counters for small crumbs to take back to their lair and feed their families. I know too well how they shall never again see their homes as I crush them and wash them down the sink.
Then there are the remnants of the children with their messy plates, forks, glasses half full of liquid. Their little spirits are too lively to sit still for more than a moment, yet their bodies are small, incapable of pacifying the mess of life. They make do as best they can given their small statures.
Laura too is represented here in the menagerie, for all that we consume was created by her hands, lovingly prepared for us without reservation. There are the burned pans, stuck rice, splatters of oil and tomato sauce. Disorder is an unavoidable bi-product of creation, I think.
Would it be better for the magician to have never brought this kitchen to life? The tremendous gift that is a kitchen comes with an inevitable cost: The Cleaning
Is a kitchen worth it?
Someone send me a maid!