What I take from my nights, I add to my days.  ~Leon de Rotrou, “Vencelas,” translated

If I had to pick one thing that I call an important nightly ritual it would be closing the kitchen. Someone said, the trouble with living alone is that it’s always your turn to do the dishes.  I don’t mind doing the dishes, it ends my day with a sense of accomplishment even if the rest of the day was a bust.

I’m one of those people who really use their kitchen, you know for cooking. I try to cook something every night and even more on the weekends.  I can always whip up a meal for anyone who walks in the door and fortunately they do walk in the door.

So closing the kitchen becomes a sort of mediation for me:

I load the dishwasher and of course there is a perfectly neurotic way to do that.  Spoons, forks, knives all in separate sections, the spoons and forks facing up and the knives are facing down. Glasses on top, big utensils under the glasses, dishes in a row, it’s not like you don’t know me by now.

I clean the sink, sprinkle with Comet while I fuss with the dishwasher then come back and scrub and rinse until the poor old porcelain tries to shine.

I rub the cutting board with lemon, to disinfect and to make the kitchen smell delicious.  After I’m done I run the lemon through the garbage disposal to bring even more fragrance to the air and of course get the gook out of the disposal.

I wash my coffee cup and put it in position for the morning, priorities are, after all, priorities.

Mostly I get all the crumbs off the counters.  I don’t know what craziness takes me over when there are crumbs left on the table or the counters but surely I wouldn’t be able to sleep if they remained.  Kosher salt used with abandon will find its way everywhere. The linty stuff from pulling paper towels off the roll in the upright holder must go. The lemon zest, the piece of shallot, the cracker crumbs, you get the picture.

Once I’ve finished, as I turn out the light I always look back and smile.  It’s a tiny little kitchen in a perfect little U shape.  I can literally stand in the middle and reach left or right and grab just about anything I need.  Gratefully, I have a very well stocked kitchen both food wise and equipment wise.   It’s far from the one I left behind but I am grateful for the people it draws, the food that comes out of it, the fact that I have it and the nightly reassurance that I want for nothing. Exhale, kitchen closed.