Inadvertent Altars

Part 1: Kitchen Window Altars

For a year now, I’ve been taking silent inventory of altars that pop-up casually in people’s homes, like impromptu displays of great beauty in nature. Each of us has treasured objects that cause a joyful response or remind us of that special time… so we put them in plain view around our home  in places where we tend to spend a lot of time. The kitchen sink is one such place.

My mother had a twelve-inch wide terra-cotta tile ledge above her sink and beyond it sliding glass doors that looked out on a cinderblock wall that she painted herself with large paisley shapes in maroon, green and black on a background of pale teal. The ledge gathered unwanted items sometimes, but those she placed with care had meaning to her. Photos of her children and grandchildren. A low profile black ceramic planter with thriving jade plant leaning toward the light. Tall spindly orange opaque bottle with its old pointy spout still intact. From her travels in Mexico, I believe. What did she ponder with her hands in sudsy sink water? What did she wonder in the house on the hill?

The window over J’s kitchen sink looks out on the lanai. In summer, she teaches childbirth out there on mats placed with care for her students on the red cement floor. What could be lovelier than  birdsong and crickets, bathing in warmth and dark and heady scents of orange blossom and night blooming jasmine, while learning how to relax and breathe through labor contractions? The entire perimeter of the curved wall screened-in lanai is full of plants. Hanging plants, plants on iron scrollwork stands, on tables, on pots turned upside down, and on the red floor. Standing at her sink and looking out beyond the lanai, I see the chicken coop and rabbit hutch and more fruit trees than I can name. There are no curtains to cut the view. Beauty beyond the  glass becomes the altar of the kitchen.

M has a one-inch sill at the bottom of the window over her sink. The window sits high and looks out on the driveway and hot white wall of the house next door. On the narrow ledge is a three inch plastic dinosaur planter with a teeny tiny succulent trying its best to survive in the meager dry soil. Maybe the glare from the white house fries it in late afternoon. Next to the dinosaur is a jaunty solar-powered panda doing non-stop hula during daylight hours. The first time I heard its small tick tick tick in the silence of M's kitchen, it took me a long while to link the sound with the visual of the panda hip action. I had a good laugh as relief washed over me. My catastrophizing brain frantically sought the source because I thought the steady sound was a drip drip drip under the sink or behind the wall. Thank Goddess for Hula Panda's Hippy Happiness! M’s real altar is on the move. An eight-year-old often helps her with kitchen tasks, and that’s about the most beautiful, bouncy, and joy-bringing sight in the whole neighborhood.

S’s kitchen was devoid of decoration, but the efficiency of his space was gobsmackingly gorgeous. A rectangular magnet on the wall to the left of the sink at the perfect height for him, seemed to puff its chest in pride because on it was stuck a collection of the best knives I have ever used. S kept them perfectly honed, a trait which I admire and shall always remember. I aspire to keep my knives as sharp. Glass jars on open shelves to the right of the sink held beans, grains, and pasta, immaculately organized, though by the time I first entered his home, he was already in end-of-life struggles so keeping up with his preferences for order was lower on the list than they had been before cancer came to live with him. The intent of kitchen as altar was clear. Golden light poured in through the over-the-sink window from 4:00 to 4:40 during that one month window of my spending time with him. Then the light faded.

Hummingbirds dart outside my current kitchen window altar. I hung a red glass feeder in the plum tree just twelve feet away from the front of the house. No matter the season, their territorial dances and chirps that sound like junior high school boys practicing kissing noises delight me. Rare moments of stillness, when one lucky feathered friend gets to settle and sip in solitude are my favorite. Behind the sink, between the faucet and the diamond light window, is a twenty-four inch deep black and brown granite countertop that runs the entire width of the window wall of the kitchen. Beyond the hummingbird tree is an expanse of redwood bark with the sleepy street beyond that. Even though the counter is deep, the flat altar space is narrow because we lower the shade each evening till it meets the counter, leaving only four or five inches between the shade and the glass for altarations, except for a half dozen plants to the right of the sink that the movement up and down of the shade doesn’t bother. The plants are happy there. Three green glass bottles fit nicely up against the window. I put a small crystal on top of one. Morning sun through it sparkles up the brick wall behind the stove with rainbows. Straw flowers in the tallest bottle make me think of working at an office downtown L.A. in my twenties. I longed to be out of doors, so I put strawflowers in a tiny clay weed pot and glued it to a poster of an open window with sill that I’d hung on the diarrhea green adobe wall in front of my desk to remind me there was life after work. Also tucked into the tallest bottle are several wishbones ready to break with the grandie, holding my half very low on the bone to make sure she gets the wish. A little red plastic hotel sits atop the last of the green bottles. Sometimes it falls off when the shade comes down. I found the lost toy in the bark out front - probably from when the family before ours had young kids. It reminds me to cherish the fun times and to be grateful for the hours of playing Monopoly with Jacky when we were eight or nine. 

In my observations, I’ve learned that objects or views that I choose to focus on either bring me joy in the moment or stir memories of times of stillness, wonder, or feeling connected to or part of something beyond the mundane mechanical drudgery of doing dishes. Not that washing dishes can't be an activity of symbolic impact: We’re cleaning up after a meal - however meager or grand, however solitary or filled with communion with other folk. 

Gratitude could be part of the ritual as warmth and suds and textures of sponge, scratcher, or cloth restore our dishes, utensils, pots and pans for use during a future filling with sustenance and communion. 

Secret altars created consciously or haphazardly are an oracle. What am I choosing to focus on in this moment, in this space, in this part of my life?