The Mask of Pretended Order

I can only remember washing the dishes...

I’ve been working on a long essay recently, one of these pieces of mine that keeps ballooning outward and confounding my editing process. I’m hoping to figure that one out soon and publish it. But, in the interest of clearing my mind, I stepped away from that piece this week and spent some time this short essay I wrote in early 2022. The title is a reference to a line I treasured from Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities:

“There is a quality even meaner than outright ugliness or disorder, and this meaner quality is the dishonest mask of pretended order, achieved by ignoring or suppressing the real order that is struggling to exist...”

I didn’t published this piece at the time because it was so soon after my divorce and things were still tense. It reads differently to me now, after three and a half years, especially as I’m planning to get married again this fall. Still, I can remember how it felt to finally put these words to the page. For ten years, I hadn’t let myself write down anything I wouldn’t want my husband to find. That spring, I felt I had permission, finally, to tell my own story… TM

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When I try to remember being married, I can only remember washing the dishes. I try to think back and my mind just takes me to the sink again, a plate in one hand, a sponge in the other. Each time, I am staring out the kitchen window at the side yard while hot water and soap pour down the plate, over my hand, into the drain. For some reason, of the decade’s memories, that’s what comes to me first. The sink and the window.

In the side yard, directly across from the kitchen window, was an eastern redbud tree. I guess it’s still there, my strange half-dead redbud, even though I’m not. That particular tree was a survivor. A circle of live stalks with a dead trunk at its center. The outer branches were covered with bright pink flowers in the spring, and then a coat of glossy leaves through the summer. In the winter, the live limbs were a light gray. At the core, the dead bark was a dark brown, just shy of black. When it rained, the rain brought out a mossy sheen on the wood. I loved my half-dead tree best in winter, bare and black, with a green tinge after a rain.

Beside the redbud tree, under an overhanging, fading chinese elm, was a wooden bench, askew on its metal legs. The bench was solid enough for sitting, but only the cats used it. I had rescued it from somewhere, and I always intended to set it straight one day. No matter how I worked the bolts, though, it sat there cockeyed. I tried more than once, but I couldn’t manage to make it right. And then there was a bird bath, usually empty. If it rained, or if I remembered to fill it, there were birds at the bird bath. Sometimes the cats wandered through and, if there were birds, the birds left.

When I looked upward from my place at the sink, I saw a triangle of sky over the gray shingles of the roof next door. Occasionally a squirrel would crouch up there, next to the brick chimney of that abandoned house. If the kitchen window was open, in the warm months, I often heard mourning doves in the trees; at night, sometimes, I heard horned owls. Some evenings I looked out the window and I watched the moon rise.

It’s funny, when you find a safe place for yourself, how you become so attached to it. I came to that sink for very practical reasons—dishes to wash, dishes to dry. But I also came to it when I was upset or frightened, or overwhelmed. I could always find some reason to busy my hands at the sink. There was work to do there. If nothing else, I could wipe down the sink and the countertops. Or I could take a glass from the cabinet by the sink and pour water into it. I could drink a little water and stare out that window. Then I could wash the glass and dry it and put it away. No one could see my face while I was looking out the window or down into the sink bowl. No one had lived in the abandoned house next door for decades. No one would ever be looking in from the side yard. No matter what else was happening, I could return to that sink and be alone.

I had never been a great housekeeper. I was raised to do chores as a child, like anyone else. And I’d grudgingly cleaned my apartment in college when I knew someone was coming to visit. In the course of my marriage, though, I learned to look forward to cleaning. I did laundry every few days. Sheets, towels, delicates. I washed the cats’ towels and blankets with added vinegar. I washed our whites with added bleach. When I wasn’t doing laundry, sometimes I disinfected the faces of the kitchen cabinets. Or I vacuumed out the refrigerator coils. I liked to begin cleaning at the top end of a room, wiping down everything with paper towels and a spray bottle of vinegar solution, and then work my way down each horizontal surface until I was ready to clean the floors. Dryer sheets took the dust off the baseboards. The tapered vacuum extension took the cobwebs from behind the piano. I didn’t like the loud noise of the vacuum, and how it made me a nuisance when I moved through the rooms, but I was familiar with all of its attachments. They each had a purpose. I grew to love that word. Purpose.

I didn’t begin my marriage as anything. I was the vague outline of a woman in her very early twenties. I had an English degree and a resume of waitressing jobs. I had some rudimentary knowledge of the web, and so at the beginning I thought I could prove my worth by learning most of the technical work of my husband’s website. I learned about web editing and publishing tools. I read long tutorials so that I could maintain and repair the computers in the house. I read the manuals that came with our appliances and I assembled anything that required assembly. Over time, I learned the basics of wood work. Then I learned the basics of masonry. There was always some task to fill the time. Something always needed my attention.

I realized I could learn anything, if I was just patient with myself. If I needed something to keep my mind occupied and my hands at work, I could find a way to teach myself anything. I became familiar with the complicated tax forms of an at-home business. I learned the workings of the financial accounts and I found a good financial advisor to help me. I learned to handle long conversations with customer service representatives. I scheduled doctor’s appointments and dentist’s appointments and I maintained a calendar of reminders and alerts to keep myself from forgetting anything. I rarely forgot anything, but rarely wasn’t quite good enough. I spent years attempting to turn rarely forgetting into never forgetting, but inevitably little things slipped by.

I mailed presents to arrive punctually early for holidays and the birthdays of my family and friends, all of whom lived far away. And when I found myself with spare time, I organized recipes into folders on my computer desktop. I read articles about broiling fish. I read articles about the varieties of crushed tomatoes. Sometimes, just for a secret thrill, I pulled up a map online and I traveled the streets in different places. I became familiar with bakeries and grocery stores and little shops in towns I hadn’t been to. Sometimes I checked the rents for the apartments on those streets. And sometimes I thought a little about the tiny apartment I’d rented in college, and the quiet pleasure of locking its door and sitting inside the living room with a candle lit, just for myself.

In the spring and summer, I spent whole days digging up the dirt of the garden. I worked on the ground until my knees were raw and my hands were covered in blisters and cuts. I turned the compost for the vegetables. I potted annuals for continuous color. I pruned and dead-headed the roses and pulled endlessly at weeds. Sometimes, in the spring, I would step back and see that it looked good. All those beds of flowers and vegetables seemed to belong to someone who was in control. Later in the season, I would lose my battles against the bermuda grass in the vegetable bed. The coneflowers would fall under their own weight and the tomato leaves would wilt. But, briefly, it all looked the way I wanted it to look. I enjoyed the aches in my legs and back and shoulders, because the pain was something I had controlled too. Some pain hurts you badly and some pain hurts you well. The pain of garden work was purposeful pain. It was anticipated pain.

In the evenings, I chopped and stirred and sauteed. I learned to char meat. I learned to stir fry. I stared quietly at the onions, willing them to caramelize. While I cooked, I leaned against the countertop and I looked out the window over the sink.

I often washed the dishes as I cooked. I preferred to save myself time that way—fewer things to wash after the meal. Maybe I only remember that kitchen sink so strongly because, in the course of a day, there were always dishes. Breakfast. Lunch. Tea in the afternoon. Dinner. With two people in the house, there was always something to be done at the sink. There was always some reason to return there. I spent so many individual minutes of those ten years with my hands against the metal rim of the sink, staring out the window and listening to the sound of the faucet running.

The water pouring into the bowl sounded like nothing. It was louder than my thoughts, which made my thoughts sound like nothing. After a while, when I had turned off the tap, I would take the dishes from the drying rack and return them to the cabinets. No matter what else was going on around me, I could always take some satisfaction in putting things where they belonged.

Silverware separated in the drawer. Plates stacked by size. Dessert plates. Salad Plates. Dinner Plates. Four juice glasses in a straight line.

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Tonya Morton is, among other things, the publisher of Juke.

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