Over at Ask MetaFilter, LionIndex located a wonderful quote:
I love this idea, and I need to keep it close to me; I am not a good friend to all the objects in my life, not as good as I should be.
I do have great fondness for many of the objects in the world, but even so, I let things pile up on top of them, I let them get dusty, I leave them unused for months and years.
I would like to be a better friend to the kitchen knives, and the cookpots, but also to my work desk, and my sketchbook, the keyboard that's spent much of its life holding piles of mail and a stack of songbooks, the high-end markers that dried up from neglect.
In one of my favorite quotes, Georgia O'Keeffe says, "to see takes time like to have a friend takes time." It takes time to be a friend, and I fail so often to make the time for all the things I want to attend to.
Here's hoping that having this image in my mind, of being a friend to the beautiful and useful things in my life, will help remind me to take another moment now and again to be that better friend.
(Aside: looking up the O'Keeffe quote, I discovered a MOMA exhibit called "To See Takes Time" and the exhibit catalog with the same name and I was surprised, amused, and slightly disappointed by the shorter version. To me, the two ideas need each other, and I think often about how deeply accurate it is, the need to spend time, present, listening, open, in order to see something well.)
Cooking makes cleaning possible, cleaning makes cooking possible. It's all the same when we are good friends with ourselves and with the world around us. To help us be good friends with ourselves and with others, with rice and cabbages, with pots and pans, we may need some rules:
Clean as you go.
Being good friends with the knives, clean and replace them in the knife rack after use.
Being good friends with the sponge, rinse and wring it out; with the towels, fold and hang them up, and wash when dirty, or before.
Being good friends with the counter, wipe it after use, and scrub sometimes; with the floor, sweep and mop. Get into the corners, and when you're done, stand the broom on end or hang it on a hook. After cleaning a greasy floor, sprinkle some salt where it's still slippery.
Being good friends with the dish sponge, don't use it on the floor. Use the dish towel for dishes, and have another for face and hands.
Being good friends with the scraps and trimmings, make some stock.
Clean the sinks! Clear the drains!
Be friends with your friends.
The section at the front of the book talks about care of knives and keeping them sharp, but since that's at the front of the book, we're not quite friends with them yet.
posted by LionIndex at 8:42 PM on April 24 [36 favorites −] Favorite added! [⚑]