Archive Article - 03/12/1997

Melissa Ward | Last updated Mar 11, 1997 12:0pm0

Real Soup

I have known three saints in my life. Two of them were dishwashers.

Saint number three, in order of meeting, had nothing to do with this subject.

Saint number two was a purist-idealist named Marcott, whom my husband and I ran across in a fantastic coincidence while we were roaming through Oregon, searching for a home with good water and clean air.

Tired and discouraged, draggy from the west-side rain, we had ducked into a small restaurant in Eugene, ready to put our quest on hold, dry our feet, and return to California.

While we ate our purist-idealist vegetarian meal, we heard singing from the kitchen. Singing! And it was, alas, a familiar voice, one that we had long loved and respected.

It is most likely that this chap was a temporary saint Ñmany of us were at the timeÑbut he took us, in any case, home to his modest cabin on a muddy hillside where we waited all night until the rain stopped. He was glowing about the head the whole time.

We told him our dreams and listened to his reflections we all swapped tall tales of the past.

Rejuvenated by his kind and generous attitude and his embracing concern, we went just twenty more cosmic miles, stopped at one more Realtor, and were propelled from there to our own personal green bower in Southwestern Oregon, like two little pins to a magnet.

Saint number one was Ruby Dyke. We worked together in a convalescent hospital during the oldster-boom in the seventies.

I did sort of uppity, front office work and she helped the cook and did ALL the dishes. She was from Oklahoma and I loved to get her to talk.

I asked her once if she ever got tired of doing the dishes. A brilliant question.

To my chagrin, she said no, she didn't. Furthermore, emblazoning herself permanently on my psyche, she said that she rather enjoyed it because it meant that everybody had had something to eat.

I was stunned. I shrunk. It was so true.

Down along the years since these events, I have been trying to integrate the words of Ruby Dyke into my after dinner attitude. Considering the fact that I have done two decades of dishes by hand since that time, I have had a great deal of practice, and some success.

Of course, now I offer my children the opportunity to learn from Ruby's words, but of course there is resistance. It seems to be as natural as the fear of falling.

Repetitious work does bring a kind of composure to the mind; behold the cloister, patiently serving; behold the research scientist, painstakingly proving; the fisherman, the cellist, the true gardener, the potter centering the clay. Rapt, all of them.