Dishes

Dishes

Samuel Bird

My parents fought in the other room about something hardly worth a second thought, let alone an argument. Their rage had not yet burned to incendiary and I did not need to step in. My eleven-year-old mind was attempting to be more peaceful. Rather than add my young voice to the conflict, I wanted to do what I could to mitigate the suffering. “You people live in sick and disgusting squaller.” I heard my father scream as his voice cracked. “Rather than clean the dishes in the sink, you let them build up as the moldy and nasty food festers until I feel sick walking next to it.” The yelling went on as I looked at the sink. While his exclusionary tone seemed unfair, he was right in his assessment of the nature of the sink. I went up to the sink and pulled my raggedy cuffs up to my elbow. I started the slow well water going as I tried not to think about the food at hand. I began to attempt to get all the crusted and caked-on prior food that had cemented itself to the dishes. I reached up to that sink with my developmentally delayed frame. My midsection was soaked and my stomach couldn’t take one more bout of slime or gunk to be pulled from the drain. Finally, I did it. The dishes were finished. “See! See how you pigs live!” He screamed as he threw open the door to see an empty sink and the only clean thing in that home: The dishes. When I was fourteen, I moved from home to work in construction. The family I lived with let me sleep in a cot in the backyard but let me eat in their house. After long days I was tired and lazy, but I would hear them in the other room. Her mind was desperately ill and she was barely able to get out of bed to change one of the baby's diapers. Her husband was trying to respond to this, but in her self-collapse, she went too deep into herself for him to reach. I would listen as they tried to navigate this as well as the serious outcomes of their situation. Out of habit, I listened to see if my name came up to know just how deeply I was hated, but that didn’t apply here. I would look over at the contents of the vessels that held our meals. The sink was piled up with dirty dishes. I quietly turned the water on and went through each dish until the last was done, before slipping out to my bed beneath the stars. The following year I worked as a cowboy. The good family I lived with fed me better than I had ever been. However, their funds were tight. I would listen as they navigated finances or another failed pregnancy. My heart went out to them, but unfortunately, I am and have been so limited. I looked over to see the sink and knew what I must do. A few years later, a friend was ill. His time to die was coming soon. I would play my guitar for him and try to talk to him, but I couldn’t do justice to his life story nor to how I wished to see him off. In his bedridden state, I stepped out to see the sink. I was reminded of these stories a few days ago when I had dinner with my sister and her husband. They are a young couple fighting against the world. They had to leave but trusted me to see myself out. However, in their stresses and labors, had let their sink build up with dishes. I smiled as I went about scraping and scrubbing. Words fail me. I beg these insignias to signify what is on my heart. I shape them just right and tell them what to do, but they can’t do the idea justice. Furthermore, in the moment of strain or stress, my faculties fail me. Perhaps an embrace or the performative word could heal what I could not. Perhaps a furrowed brow nodding could show sympathy. Perhaps I could work up the tears they deserved to mourn out their life with them. I know myself well enough to know exactly where beings stop, and I know I can’t be what they need me to do. However, when they came to eat their next meal, they would have clean plates and utensils to do so. The great irony of this being, there were plenty of dishes in my sink. 

As I accept the limitations of my estate and frame, I steadfastly ignore any limitations on my soul. Let it grow to be the monolith that weary souls need to rest in its shadow. I pray for greatness that it may spill out to those around me. I go back and forth on whether or not I should serve in silence. Sometimes I serve in silence so that I can show to myself what I have become. Sometimes I make it clear it was I who did the dishes, so they knew exactly who loved them so much. I have attempted to affect other’s lives for the better, while not being a part of them. I later realized I wished to bring them something beautiful while being too scared to be part of their lives. However, in my selfish desire to be secure, I forgot that it is often not the dishes, but that someone thought to do them and valued you worth doing them. Let this alleged altruism you see be my selfishness on display. In my greed and desire to maximize myself, I find that it is to do for you. Love is making your values mine. Love is making the unselfish selfish. Love is co-being. In short, using the word love is a promise and the applied behavior will keep it from being a lie. I know what about me is at fault for limiting this, but there is something to say for serving to be seen. Let them see me walk away with a damp shirt and dried fingers. Let them know in that moment what was done, and let them know what I signified by it. For this reason, the smaller the society, the better its operation. I can be selfishly unselfish to anyone, but they must become someone of significance to me. The family prevails and yet a shared economy doesn’t because in the family I can see the fruits of my labors. I needed to see the good I was doing to reinforce my doing it. How was I able to pull this value from within myself? A few days ago I was tired and bitter from a life that took a lot of work, but barely provided enough to keep me alive. I was stressed and confused about how I was going to make so little money last so long. I thought of a friend who was in need. I went to help them while forgetting my needs. In his anxieties, he was very cross which spilled to me and he was not grateful. Yet, I still found it valuable. Something about taking someone’s burdens on your shoulders makes them lighter than if they were yours to start. Math fails to approximate as I have nothing left to give, but find that nothing multiplied in someone’s need. To a degree, with limitations, and with a need to think of the further philosophical ramifications I say: Let my life be in part about yours, and let it then mean something. 

We finished the last logical proof for the day which had a series of complex predicates and many lines. My head was starting to hurt, but she was still following the ideas very well. “I knew you could do it.” She said. “That makes one of us.” “I like to let you try and think for yourself. You are getting better.” “From awful to terrible is a change, but thank you.” She laughed as I stood up and packed up my bag. “I appreciate your help. Be safe getting home.” With my last word, she froze up. “No! Maybe you have more homework we could do. I’m having fun.” “The building closes in thirty minutes, we need to leave.” She sat there in the chair as she shrunk down like a scared animal in its hole. In her eyes was the that look I never could see, but assumed I gave when my father would come toward me. “Maybe we could get together with Richard and get a snack.” “He is probably in bed now. Plus it's late, you need to get back to your husband.” She began to shake as she pulled her legs up onto the chair and curled them in to protect herself from her thoughts. I could now tell she was ready. “You don’t want to go home, do you?” She began to shake her head and cry. If you don’t believe that the human mind is wired with programs from birth, then you have never felt the protective rage of a man seeing a woman cry like that. “I know. I could tell for some time, but I have learned I needed to wait for you to say it. Now, tell me, what is happening.” “Nothing, I swear, he isn’t too bad... He just... Has bad days.” “When he has bad days, you do too huh?” She cried more as she nodded. I breathed deeply as I looked around and thought. “I have a plan.” We were able to find some solutions and they are still married. This young lady is my best friend, and she is in a much better spot. A number of times in my life I have been around a young woman who was being treated violently by the person she was in a relationship with. Many people are around them, but I am able to tell when and have some things I do to remedy it. The first is letting these cowards know that their reign of feeling powerful has come to an end when someone bigger than them knows about it. I have learned to not lazily make these men the villains, but to ignore my limbic system and to partner with them. I have been in harsh phone calls, coordinating with shelters, and even given what resources I have. The most recent example of this was only a few days ago. I called a friend to check on her and could tell she was ready to tell me what was going on and perhaps to change her circumstances. The vile character who claimed to love her had mutilated her arm with a knife as punishment. As always, she was very convinced it was all her fault and was just embarrassed she drove him to it. I reminded her of proportionality and this was a nuclear weapon compared to a verbal slight. I pulled her out of the shell she had climbed in, got her insights, and then very bossily told her what the plan was so there were no minced words. Finally, I told her I would not leave until I heard her say that she didn’t deserve it. With gentle coaxing she said it. I told her she may not believe it now, but I do and one day she will. 

It has been one of the honors of my life to be there for these women when they have needed it. I feel the redemption I craved as a young child who saw my mother’s infliction and wished I had limbs like bows to protect her. I am no longer little, quiet, or scared. I can and will stop what I do not admire in the world. My mind swims through comparisons of what is subjective, relative, and arbitrary, but something from my organism can give me guesses of what is beautiful and vile. These woman’s safety is a work of art and their oppression is disgusting. Some things are unknowable and yet we know them. At the very least this is a part of my Esse Maxim and is me engaging with my existence. However, once again there are dishes in my sink. I was not able to protect my own mother. I am not able now to care for her as she needs. With her recent medical crisis, I cursed the economy at large for removing the option for me to buy even the most humble of homes. Furthermore, I feel a rage at these “men” that hurt. I have dreamed of finding someone to love and here they are with such and defiling it. What world gives the most sacred of gifts to the most wretched of stewards? I have spent my whole life preparing to be a father, and yet struggle to make the circumstances needed for having one. How do these failures live on with something so sacred when those who labor go without? This deep point of rage reminds me of the facts I resign myself to. I am past the lazy and conflicting gospel of prosperity or saving from my woes. I will suffer my whole life and I will suffer certain things no matter what I do. They are inevitable, though I can assume their burden with grace and honor. Suffering and writhing is our inevitability. Doing something that makes such honorable, contextual, and meaningful is our opportunity. Then, we can find value in agonies necessity. What does this best? I can think of one thing that is worth putting on a short list. That which you don’t have, give it and you will find it. That which you didn’t receive, offer it and someone will. That which you long for, pass it on. If my story is a tragedy, let it be one that others find beauty in or have benefited from. Let my misery be the necessary catalyst for what another is deprived of. I will try my best to handle the mess that is myself. I will attempt to diagnose and cleanse. However, some part of what I am is made sense of by what I can offer to others, even with dirty dishes in my sink.