An Everyday Event

The kitchen sink is full as always. I am alone with it, it calls my name. I respond not but take note. It is a sink full of mismatched human technologies trying to clean themselves up (NOT) but who call out my name to what? To clean them. Someone has to do it, why not this maid? I wash a few spoons (take a photograph) and then I write in order to build an ethnography of what is going on around me.

While washing the spoons I contemplate the collection of 'things' upon the kitchen shelf. There are all kinds of things for different reasons whose material reality clog up the shelf, prohibiting the cleaning of the ledge upon where they precariously sit. Being severe earthquake country, these objects should be classified as hazardous objects, let's not classify them, however, let's finish cleaning our spoons and write to the heart of the matter. Which is? I am sick of some objects! There are too many of them and they are all different and usually dirtier than the pallet will allow.Someone has to clean them, move them about, make way for them, be their keepers and lie down with them. What objects are worth that amount of energy and intimacy, well let's see which objects are? The answer depends on who or whom you ask. To who am I addressing? The new sociologist in me that is moving house, the person who studies people for the benefit of people but foremost for understanding herself alongside so many different objects including people, some dirtier than others, some made of metal, some plastic and some for specialised uses....things and people are legion! How to make sense of so much? And, how to move it all efficiently without breaking the objects and/or other hearts attached to them. Do we get to decide who and what we interact with the most? Are all the objects on the shelf a matter of personal concern? You bet they are, they need cleaning, sorting and moving and somehow they all landed inside my house. This entire household is on the move now because we are changing address, place and lifestyle in a matter of weeks. Every thing here is demanding consideration to stay for the next occupant, go with us or purchase a one way ticket to somewhere else to be recycled and become someone else's matter of concern. I washed a few more spoons.

Clark came back from the market and brought more objects, but he was forgiven because they looked like proteas.

Then, I went out into the garage and got two boxes, one for things to go to our new home and one for things to be donated to the Salvation Army. What a name, Salvation Army, something desirable coupled with an act of war. The war on objects has started here, I intend to be ruthless, unsentimental, practical and efficient.This will be my first box packed. While I was in the act of the doing of it I scrubbed walls, washed and squeegeed windows and emptied out another cupboard besides what was on the kitchen shelf. Things that needed doing grew and the kitchen sink was cleaned, too. Sparking from my motivation, Clark got his own two boxes and sorted his gardening and cooking books in-between reading sessions.

All in all, three boxes were taped shut, demarcated as to what was inside of them and deposited under the living room table for now.One box full of castaway objects sits in the utility room floor awaiting a speedy exit. There are less objects on the kitchen ledge now and the kitchen sink is empty. I am sure this will be an everyday event for some weeks, no months to come.