I like unravelling thread. I like untying knots and cables. Do you?
For me there is a great sense of satisfaction in making order out of something disorderly and messy. Just imagine, there is a mass of knotted electrical cables in front of you. Some loose and some quite tight. You can see at least three colours in the mound. Don't you feel your fingers start to twitch uncontrollably? (Mike and guitar cables are the best. For one, they're big enough so you don't have to use your nails, and unlike rope they won't chafe your hands and make them sore, and unlike thread you don't have the feeling that you're destroying something. But don't get me started on rubber bands twisted tightly around a bag. They will always, by some universal rule, snap on your fingers painfully no matter how carefully you try to untangle them.)
Same thing with washing dishes. Except for washing dishes, there is a stigma and certain repellent quality of it being "housework" that initially stops me from beginning the task. But once it starts it takes on a certain dreamlike/zombie quality. It's just you and the dishes. Mano el disho. And the clinging dirt and oil thats going...away, away! Down the sink into oblivion!
And once you're done-washed your hands, wiped them on a clean towel or shaken the water off with grave finality-there is a sense of whelming (not over-, but just enough to last a few seconds) satisfaction at a job done - for that day, at least.
Why am I writing about this? Has the tea puller gone a little off topic, a wee bit wyeird?
Not really. No one should grow to old to savour little joys. Maybe we can't all run in open hills and smell dandelions (I wouldn't even recognise a dandelion if I saw one) and eat fresh berries in early spring (I want!), but there are ways to make each day a little more bearable. By doing things that make you happy. Simple things that don't require elaborate set ups or commercial forms of entertainment or even money.
Dishes, anyone? I could always use an extra pair of hands...
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