Stick with me.
We are living smaller now. And I love it. We have a two bedroom, one bath apartment in the back corner lot of our landlord's home. It still has a separate side entrance with a lovely brick pathway that leads past a palm tree and ferns.
It has a private patio and table for meals so it feels like a secret escape.
Escape. Kinda what I was going for when we came to Australia.
The kitchen is really small. I can stand at the sink, reach the plates in the cabinet, grab a pancake off the stove, pour the smoothie from the blender, and set the food on the counter to serve to Henry for breakfast without moving my feet. Just one step back and I'm at the fridge, microwave, and oven. It's an efficient setup. I don't have a dishwasher, but the hand washing forces more frequent washing sessions so I can just wash and reuse the same 3-4 plates instead of having dozens in the cabinets that create loads of dishes.
The refrigerator is very small. Very small. It doesn't have enough space to have leftovers that get forgotten before I have to throw them out. The less space requires that I cook dinner and then we eat the leftovers for another 1-2 nights before I cook again. And I can't just stuff my freezer full of food that gets lost forever.
And the door opens to wrong direction. So I'm more in the hallway when I open the fridge. “Hallway” is a generous term. The "hall" is just the area where you decide if you are entering the master bedroom, Henry's room, the living room or the kitchen. The door also opens very close to the ground so if you are barefoot and try to short circuit walking all the way around to open it, it hurts a lot when that door scrapes over the top of your foot. Repeatedly. Ha. I tried to reverse the door but it requires loosening and moving 5 bolts on top. Three of them loosened. Two of them wouldn't budge.
The brick chunk there in the middle shows how small the kitchen is
because the area it obscures is pretty much the entire work space.
I don't have a lot of baking pans. There was one mini muffin pan here that I use, but if I have leftover batter I just use mugs to bake the rest. Mixing bowls double as dishwashing basins. Dish towels double as pot holders. And the side of the fridge even doubles as a white board!
There is no garbage disposal. But, we have another excuse for prodding Henry to finish the food on his plate.
I'm not allowed to have "parties" here and I'm not having large family dinners on Sunday night so it's fine that my kitchen is small. The biggest group I've served is when the missionaries came over for dinner.
I don't have a lot of complaints. I love it here. Because "here" is 1 mile from the beach and the weather is beautiful. And it's in Australia where it is summer and back home in Utah they've gotten lots more snow than normal.
But there are two problems I've had with the sink.
1) The water pressure is so low that it doesn't draw enough flow to activate the on-demand hot water heater. If anyone is in the shower--in our house or the owner's--the water just dribbles out. No pressure at all. I usually have to heat water in the tea kettle (standard equipment in Commonwealth countries). But that brings me to problem number...
2) the faucet has such a low profile that it is difficult to get anything under it, especially if *anything* is in the sink. So I have to have a completely empty sink to fill the kettle. But I have dirty dishes in it. And when I have a basin full of dish water, I have a hard time fitting the dishes under the faucet to rinse them.
It's not a great photo but this is the only one I have that shows
the size of the sink and the low profile of the faucet. There is barely 2" of clearance.
I have not complained about the sink. Out loud or in my head. I am thankful. I keep it in perspective. I can handle this. Beach. Sunshine. Barefoot running.
But I have told the owner about the problem and he just says the water pressure is what it is and can't be fixed (and yet the bathroom sink has no issue). And the low pressure couldn't possibly be the reason I don't get hot water (disagree.) And he just says I have to let it run longer to clear the cold from the pipes (I know I'm from another country and all but I'm not clueless about having to wait a moment for the hot water to arrive. I've been a GIRLS CAMP COOK, so I probably know more about cooking and cleaning under duress than he does.)
I finally got his attention with the water leaking. If I turn on the cold water the hot water faucet leaks buckets. So he called a plumber. The plumber also told me I just have to let the water run longer (seriously folks, that's not it). But as he looked into the leak he couldn't get the parts off because they are so old and corroded. The faucet had clogged pipes like a man waiting for a quadruple bypass. He had to cut them all off with a grinder.
Which means...he had to replace the entire setup with a NEW FAUCET. And it is taller. And apparently the new faucet isn't loaded with corrosion buildup so...it has enough flow to activate the hot water heater.
It's so much more exciting than it looks!
But wait, there's more! Before the plumber left, I asked if he had a socket wrench to remove the stubborn bolts on top of the fridge. He did! So I was able to reverse the door direction.* I feel like I have a whole new kitchen!
I couldn't wait to do the dishes. I didn't have to heat water in the kettle. I could rinse the dishes in hot water instead of cold, which helps them dry faster. I can quickly grab the onion from the fridge instead of having to walk around. I want to tell everyone my joy!
See my whiteboard on the side?
And then I come to the thief of joy. Unless I tell you all of the above at length, or unless you live here for a week yourself, you have no appreciation for what a big deal this is. And if I was just living in my normal over-sized house (like my landlord) I would also have no idea what a significant difference it makes to have hot water and a higher faucet. And even I know that I will someday (too soon) return to my old home that has a full size faucet, double sink, water sprayer AND a garbage-disposal and none of this will matter (and TWO full-size refrigerators!). Big deal.
So I don't even stay in the moment of this gratitude of a new faucet for long before I realize that *by comparison* it's really not a big deal. And that there are many people living with dirt floors, no running water, and certainly no backward-opening fridge to complain about. And that's where the joy in this dies. Looking around kills it. Expectations squelch it. Lack of perspective negates it.
But that should not stop me from being grateful. So I'm going to stay here in this moment and still be joyful that I have a new faucet. For 12 more weeks I will be happier in that kitchen than I was before I arrived and I will be so thankful for a God that doesn't mansplain away my needs and finds a way to remind me that He's looking out for me.
Today I heard a story at church that further illustrates this. He had a client who had a six month goal to dance with his girlfriend on Valentine's Day. If you don't know the background, that would seem like a "no big deal" goal and sounds easy. Is she out of town? Does he struggle to keep a beat? Is he too nervous to ask? And when he accomplishes the goal you'd likely say, "oh nice," or "cute."
But here's the rest of the story. The client is a young man who has a degenerative neural disorder that is wasting away the ability of his brain to communicate with his body. He hasn't walked or even stood for over 6 months. But my friend telling the story is a therapist, and worked with him on this goal. In addition to strengthening and balancing exercises, these two men would stand and slow dance in the young man's living room for months leading up to Valentine's Day. He said their first attempt was nothing close to successful. Can you imagine the joy when the client was able to surprise his girlfriend with this on Valentine's Day? Does that not make such a simple pleasure SO MUCH MORE ROMANTIC? Can you understand the emotional tears through which my friend at church shared this story?
This is the *fruit* of the knowledge of good and evil, joy and sorrow. We get to experience both! And it makes everything taste so much sweeter. "Better" will always exist, and so will "worse." It isn't about that. It's about holding both, knowing the difference, and embracing the wisdom gained.
* This oversimplifies what it actually took to reverse the door. It's always harder than you think. We had to buy our own socket wrench because as we got further into the process we found other bolts that wouldn't budge. But it was worth it. My toes are grateful. And every small step along the way encouraged me to persist. (And every extra step reminded me to try again!)
