BUILDING 04.15.2013

There are those people who meticulously build up their dish racks full of plates, pots, bowls, and wooden spoons. They build the shapes into some perfect piece of practical architecture. They scrub, they rinse, and deliberately insert. Everything is neatly stacked and proud in their rubber lined, or metal shined, articulated spaces. These people know logic and geometry; they are a different type of grown up than me.

They don’t need to question the stability of their mountain, which is indeed what I make, a mountain. I somehow avoid the obvious structure, and just begin piling. I opt to set edges against edges; balancing bowls on the ribbed bottoms of plates, resting spoons inside of mugs, mismatched chopsticks inside of Kombucha bottles, and huge pots on top of all of these things. When I add the last dripping dish, I slowly remove my hands, and make a little wish to steady the mountain. The whole thing shimmies like a very mild earthquake until everything shifts into a more comfortable position.

Once the dishes have dried, those that were deliberate and organized, never have to think about the task of unraveling their mess, because there is no mess. They casually remove dry dish after dry dish, stacking them neatly in their cozy little cabinets. When it’s time for me to pick apart the pieces that populate my sink, it’s like a game of metal, ceramic, and glass Jenga. With each dish I remove, there is a clanging and a clinking. Perhaps, I’m just building some tension with a little noise, to better experience the silence. Perhaps, I'm just a sucker for sound, and little bit of chaos.

Let’s keep going...

I don’t want to talk about building.

I don’t want to talk about my favorite buildings, because I have so many, and that would take too long.

I don’t want to talk about many years of building friendships with people who are no longer building friendships with me.

I don’t want to talk about how much I wish I could build more things by hand, or how much I judge myself for being more comfortable with building relationships and experiences.

I don’t want to talk about building a connection with my dad after he died, and how it's better, deeper, and more dynamic than the one I allowed us to build when he was living.

I don’t want to talk about the fact that choosing to build a specific home or career in a specific place on earth, is inherently the death of so many other ways of building those same things.

I don’t want to talk about building there, when the ground feels so sturdy and ripe right here.