The Glass-Cabinet

    Very well. I will admit that this photograph, even for an amateur photographer, is pretty pathetic. But taking pictures in a kitchen means that the choices for orientation are extremely limited. (In other words, I didn't want you all to see the mulch of spattered cookbooks and wayward telephones beneath and around the cabinet.)

    And now . . .

    You may think you see an ordinary cabinet. (Okay, an ugly ordinary cabinet.) That's what I used to think, too. It's made of terribly plain, pinkish-hued wood, and is opened using those horrid little porcelain handles with the herbs painted on them. Little did I know how strong a hold it had upon me.

    I call it the glass-cabinet for two reasons: 1) because it has glass panes (duh) and 2) because it contains the collected muster of the family's glassware. It is because there are few places in this house which are designated and used for a single purpose that I consider the latter remarkable.

    You know how certain things gather in the dark corners of your mind and stay there awhile without your noticing? That's how the cabinet was. It should have been treated with more respect by yours truly, considering the fact that we have no others of its kind or for its sacred purpose, but I never bothered with it. I fingerprinted the panes, watched passively whilst grease and fly specks gathered on it, and never once pitied its plight. Worst of all, the glassware, each item of which is in itself very handsome, was jumbled about and mixed up and shoved in unceremoniously, so that behind the doors loomed chaos. One never remembered how many glasses of each kind there were, and had to fish about for long minutes just to find the ones one wanted.

    So the ugliness of that cabinet scratched up a nest in my subconscious and made itself comfortable. And it was only when the carefree Ben Franklin commented on it that I realized something had to be done.    

This something turned out to be pretty straightforward. I simply found a cloth and a bottle of Windex and started rubbing. Then it occurred to me that the glasses ought to be organized into proper rows, so I did that, too. Simple.

    But with complicated effects. I felt as I scrubbed, polished, and rearranged, that I was doing the same thing to my cobwebbed soul. That grime and disorganization had weighed so much on me in the past, along with occasional hard times and teenage brooding. When through, I felt enlightened, refreshed, empowered: finally emerging from the layers of weariness I'd gathered over the long winter.

    I daresay the affair was not so important to the rest of the family, for they offered cheerful comment as I worked, perched like a canary on the counter, but did not seem to grasp the pomp of the affair. No, this was a personal battle. To me, what had once been just another ugly cabinet was now a charming facet of a charming home. Looks like it belongs in Green Gables, I thought smugly as I surveyed the victory.

    "So what's the point?" You say.

    The point is that you should keep your cabinets clean. And dust those shelves in your mind's attic. And remember that all will be right in the end. In the meantime, it's best to be gainfully employed.