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Sure, he would soon use these recently washed over again while the ones on the bottom wouldn’t be used for several days. So what? Eventually they would be used. It wasn’t as though he was putting them in storage for years.
What had that precious order been all about?
Same with the knives and forks, so far as putting them away on top, but he would continue to separate them by shapes and sizes, because that was useful.
Goines hadn’t expected to feel such a great sense of relief, but the freedom he was feeling now was astounding.
And at lunch, as he was slicing the cucumber for the Goineses’ salads, he questioned why he was counting the slices. What was that all about? Was it just a habit, like counting repetitions of physical therapy exercises or the 30 seconds prescribed for holding a stretch?
What had that precious order been all about?
Same with the knives and forks, so far as putting them away on top, but he would continue to separate them by shapes and sizes, because that was useful.
Goines hadn’t expected to feel such a great sense of relief, but the freedom he was feeling now was astounding.
And at lunch, as he was slicing the cucumber for the Goineses’ salads, he questioned why he was counting the slices. What was that all about? Was it just a habit, like counting repetitions of physical therapy exercises or the 30 seconds prescribed for holding a stretch?
He remembered that one physical therapist, years ago, who said she didn’t count, she just concentrated on her breathing.
Could he break this counting habit? He immediately stopped counting cucumber slices and concentrated on the quick chop, chop, chop of the knife on the cutting board. No problem! He could do this!
He would count only things it was useful to count, like the number of seconds he ran water into the electric tea kettle, because he knew approximately how many seconds of water from the tap it would take to have enough water for the coffee or the tea and for heating the cups and having sufficient hot water left to wash the dishes. That was just sensible, wasn’t it?
It was!
And more than that, it was fun! – as Goines discovered over the next few days – just to pull out the plates for preparing their salads without any regard to whether their patterns matched. My God, Goines said to himself, never mind that he didn’t believe in God.
In the course of the following 24 hours, Goines discovered things that he could have discovered long ago but hadn’t.
He would count only things it was useful to count, like the number of seconds he ran water into the electric tea kettle, because he knew approximately how many seconds of water from the tap it would take to have enough water for the coffee or the tea and for heating the cups and having sufficient hot water left to wash the dishes. That was just sensible, wasn’t it?
It was!
And more than that, it was fun! – as Goines discovered over the next few days – just to pull out the plates for preparing their salads without any regard to whether their patterns matched. My God, Goines said to himself, never mind that he didn’t believe in God.
In the course of the following 24 hours, Goines discovered things that he could have discovered long ago but hadn’t.
Like the existence in the web browser on his iPhone of an option to bring up all the browser’s open tabs.
Or like the order in which he cleaned his teeth and fluoride-rinsed relative to when he drank a slurry of the nighttime medication that would coat and protect his esophagus and stomach lining while he was in bed. The rinse’s direction said not to eat or drink anything for 30 minutes afterwards, so he had been trying to remember to take care of his teeth at least half an hour before he prepared for bed. But that was proving a nuisance…until he realized that he could drink the slurry after flossing and brushing his teeth, but before rinsing!
His demand for order in the house seemed to him now to have been preventing him from seeing these things. A little less order in the house was revealing to Goines that he may have been much more “stuck in his ways” than he had ever suspected. What a great discovery!
Well, a trivial discovery, really, but big in Goines’ small, insular world of household chores, thinking, waiting, trying not to fear the approaching end of his life.
Well, a trivial discovery, really, but big in Goines’ small, insular world of household chores, thinking, waiting, trying not to fear the approaching end of his life.
| Copyright © 2022 by Moristotle |
Trivial? I hardly think so, given what comes after. The elephant in everyone's bathroom is the fear, or at least, the anticipation of personal extinction. I'm glad to say we gave up on order, matching dishes, silverware, anything, years ago. We have stuff from family, garage sales, left when we had pig roasts, whatever. But I am glad to hear I'm not the only one who obsesses about time. I know how long it takes for the fridge water jug to fill (and I can tell when it is full by the tone of the water so I don't have to watch it), and I am surprised how much one can accomplish in 46 seconds. I try to see how many dishes I can load or unload in the washer while my English muffin is toasting or how much clothing I can fold while my coffee brews (eight minutes; amazing what you can do in eight minutes if you try).
ReplyDeleteGaines too is “glad to hear [he’s] not the only one who obsesses”! He’s comforted that you also attend to the immediate workings of your mind, or at least that you acknowledge it, when so few others do…unless they are just mostly oblivious to the immediacy of their daily living and can’t acknowledge it, not even to themselves?
Delete“GAines”? Who dat?
DeleteThese habits, making coffee, feeding the animals, shaving, doing dishes, cooking, doing laundry, even trimming a bush or two, are the bones of our existence. As men, we feel we no longer have a purpose because we can no longer do what we once did. This is not true. We have a life to live, and work to do, and the loves of our lives to do it with (if we are lucky, and you and I are, to date), and still some pleasure to be squeezed from this life's fruit before we leave it behind.
ReplyDeleteI think you may mis-characterize Goines in suggesting that he feels he no longer has a purpose. He too feels he still has “life to live” and work and, especially, loving to do, because love has never seemed so precious, and the things and persons one loves have never been more precious.
DeleteAmen to that. Somewhere along the way love becomes quite extradentary!
DeleteI should have said "many" men devalue themselves when they cannot do what they think they should, as men, do. My father in law had his first heart attack at 36, and could not support his family. He was ashamed, as if he had some choice or fault in the matter. I confess to a bout with what amounts to guilt as I became less and less able to perform the day-to-day tasks I feel are my responsibility. I have stared it down and am determined to enjoy what I have, do what I can do and accept that the other stuff is gone.
ReplyDeleteHear, hear! You, Goines, and I are one in this.
Delete