Keeping House
by Mary Soon Lee
In a well-run household, such matters as laundry and dusting and the scouring of pots need not concern the mistress of the establishment. Discarded silk robes will discreetly wriggle their way to the washing tub. Each morning after breakfast, the soap will jump in, and the garments will scrub each other. If, on occasion, the younger ones splash over-vigorously, excited by the bubbles, their elders will calm them.
The cook prepares the meals, but neither lays the table nor cleans up afterward. The chopsticks and china proceed to their accustomed places beforehand, then move to the kitchen at the meal's conclusion. There they line up, pots to the rear. In our household, the oldest brush supervises. His bristles are frayed. His handle is worn. He no longer enters the sink. Yet even the rowdiest platters hush when he speaks. Hanging from his hook, he directs the entire operation, from the heating of the water to the polishing of the tea bowls.
It is veterans such as this who govern the household.
My great, great, great grandmother's bronze phoenix lamp is the undisputed matriarch of our home. During the day, she hurries from room to room. No speck of dust escapes her attention. No rug dares to rumple itself. At night, she positions herself by the pool in the inner courtyard, her reflection bobbing in the water beside the mirrored moon.
