Latest / The Culture Club: Books, Art, Film, Music & Entertainment / Why Washing Dishes Feels Like Poetry: Finding Magic in Mundane Chores | The Culture Club
Transcript
- There is a specific kind of magic that happens when you are elbow-deep in soapy water, scrubbing a burnt pan at eleven pm, and suddenly the universe whispers that you are exactly where you need to be. I want you to close your eyes for a second. Just one second. Picture your kitchen sink right now. Or maybe it’s last night. The faucet is running, warm but not too hot, hitting the ceramic with that steady, rhythmic drip-drip-drip that sounds like a metronome set to a very slow adagio. You’re holding a sponge that has seen better days, maybe it’s yellow, maybe it’s green on one side, covered in suds that smell like lemon or something synthetic and clean. And you’re thinking about how tired you are. Not the sleepy kind of tired, but the deep-bone, soul-level exhaustion that comes from carrying the weight of being an adult who has to remember to buy toilet paper and respond to emails and make decisions about what to eat for dinner three times a day. In this moment, with the steam rising off the dishes and the noise of the world muffled by the running water, something shifts. It’s quiet. It’s just you and the chore. And I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why this feels less like a task and more like a ritual. Why does scrubbing a plate feel like writing a haiku? Because both require presence. Both demand that you pay attention to the texture of the thing in front of you. The grease doesn’t care about your deadline. The stain on the counter doesn’t care about your anxiety. They only care if you show up. And when you do, when you really look at the mess and decide to clean it, there is a profound act of creation happening. You are turning chaos into order. You are imposing structure on entropy. That is poetry, my friend. That is literally what poets have been trying to do for centuries, and you’re doing it with dish soap. Let’s dig into the velvet of this idea for a moment. We often separate our lives into compartments, don’t we? There’s the creative life, which is supposed to be inspiring, filled with big ideas and late nights writing novels or painting canvases. And then there’s the domestic life, which is supposed to be the boring intermission between acts. The laundry folding, the trash taking out, the sweeping of floors. We treat these things as obstacles to our real work. But I’m here to tell you that they are not obstacles. They are the foundation. They are the ground beneath the feet of your art. When you fold a fitted sheet, you are engaging in a complex geometry problem that requires patience and dexterity. When you sweep the porch, you are engaging with the rhythm of the bristles against concrete, a percussive beat that can sync up with your breathing. What’s the texture of this? Is it rough? Is it smooth? Does it feel like surrender or control? These questions matter. They matter because they anchor us in the present. We spend so much time living in our heads, worrying about tomorrow or regretting yesterday. But your hands are always here. Now. In the dirt. In the water. In the dust. To write poetry about chores is to reclaim the present moment from the tyranny of the future. It is to say, 'This matters. This dirty cup matters. This pile of clothes matters.' And in a world that tells us we must always be achieving, always be producing visible results, choosing to find meaning in the invisible maintenance of life is a radical act of rebellion. I remember a winter years ago, back when I was working in that little bookstore downtown, before the podcast, before all this noise. The heating system was broken. Well, it was working, but it was loud. It clanked and hissed every ten minutes, sounding like a dying whale. I would stay late, closing up shop, and I’d wash the coffee mugs from the staff room. There were always seven mugs. Seven chipped, stained, mismatched mugs. Each one belonged to someone else. Someone with their own worries, their own loves, their own secret pains. As I washed them, I imagined their stories. The blue mug with the chip on the rim? Probably used by the manager when she needed to hide her face while crying. The one with the faded floral pattern? Definitely used by the shy guy who read poetry aloud on Fridays. I wasn’t just cleaning objects; I was caring for people. I was washing away the residue of their day so they could start fresh the next morning. That feeling stayed with me. It taught me that care is a verb. It’s not a feeling; it’s an action. And sometimes, the most loving thing you can do for yourself or someone else is to wash their dishes. To clear the space. To make room for new beginnings. When you write about these moments, you aren’t just describing a chore. You’re describing love. You’re describing the quiet, unglamorous devotion that holds families and friendships together. Think about the rhythm of your own routine. Most of us have a cadence to our household tasks. Maybe it’s the way you hang clothes on the line, swinging them over the rail like flags. Maybe it’s the way you wipe down the counters in concentric circles, starting from the stove and moving outward. There is a music in repetition. A lullaby in the mundane. I think back to that episode we did a few weeks ago about maternal lullabies and how minor keys can transform grief into something bearable. Well, chores have their own minor keys. The repetitive motion soothes the nervous system. It’s meditative. It’s trance-like. When you enter that state, where your mind stops racing and your body takes over, you might find thoughts bubbling up that you didn’t know were there. Ideas for stories. Solutions to problems. Insights about your relationships. This isn’t coincidence. This is the subconscious getting a break from the conscious mind’s chatter. It’s giving your brain space to process. So don’t fight it. Don’t try to listen to a podcast or scroll through your phone while you’re folding laundry. Let the silence come. Let the boredom come. Boredom is the soil where creativity grows. If you’re always stimulated, you never let your imagination rest. But if you stand there, folding socks, matching pairs in the dim light of the hallway lamp, you might hear a whisper. A line of verse. A character name. A melody. It’s waiting for you in the quiet. It’s hiding in the folds of the fabric. We often feel powerless in our daily lives. We wake up, we go to work, we come home, we collapse. It feels like we are passengers in our own bodies, carried along by momentum. But chores offer a tiny window of agency. You choose to clean the bathroom. You choose to organize the pantry. You choose to mend the tear in your favorite shirt. These are small choices, yes. But they are yours. And in exercising them, you remind yourself that you have power. That you can change your environment. That you are not just a victim of circumstance, but an active participant in shaping your world. When you write about this, you are reclaiming your narrative. You are saying, 'I am here. I am doing this. And it means something.' It challenges the cultural narrative that says domestic work is inferior, that it’s unworthy of artistic attention. It’s not. It is the bedrock of civilization. Without someone washing the dishes, no one could write the sonnet. Without someone sweeping the floor, no one could dance. Acknowledge the dependency. Honor the labor. Whether it’s your labor or someone else’s. If you live with others, notice who does the work. Notice the invisibility of it. Write about that invisibility. Write about the person who wipes the table after you leave. Write about the ghost in the machine who keeps the house standing. Make them visible. Give them words. Give them dignity. That is what poetry does. It makes the unseen seen. It makes the silent heard. So here is my challenge to you this week. I want you to pick one chore. Just one. Maybe it’s watering the plants. Maybe it’s loading the dishwasher. Maybe it’s ironing a shirt. And I want you to do it with total, fierce attention. No multitasking. No checking your phone. No listening to music. Just you and the task. Engage all five senses. What does the water feel like? What does the soap smell like? What does the fabric sound like when it hits the basket? Look closely at the object you are cleaning. Really look at it. See its history. See its wear and tear. Feel the weight of it in your hand. After you finish, take three minutes to write about it. Not a list. Not a note. Write prose. Write verse. Write nonsense if you have to. But capture the sensation. Capture the mood. Tell me about the texture of this experience. Did it calm you? Did it anger you? Did it surprise you? Share it with me if you want. Send it to the show notes email. I read every single one. I want to see how you translate the mundane into the meaningful. I want to see how you find the magic in the mess. Because you have it. You have the power to turn ordinary days into extraordinary memories. You just have to pay attention. And I believe in you. I really do. So go forth. Wash those dishes. Fold those sheets. Sweep those floors. And write about it like your life depends on it. Because maybe, just maybe, it does. Thank you for letting me into your kitchen tonight. Thank you for being willing to look at the sink and see something beautiful. I’m Stella Duarte, and I’ll see you in the next chapter. Keep creating. Keep caring. Keep showing up.