It's Saturday morning and I am emptying
the dishwasher. For what must be the 100,000th time in this life.
Maybe it’s Norah Jones on the radio, but this menial household chore is becoming an experience for me. I am fixated on the ceramic white plates that I bought from an artisan storefront in 2012.
Our true adult lives start first and foremost in a place. It could begin in a grimy women’s bathroom in New York City, or while eating in the brightly colored cafeteria at Google in Mountain View, California. If you're paying attention, you know the specific moment your adult life begins because it just slaps you in the face. It's like a small explosion in the air, and it's kind of painful. All of the inanimate things around you pulsate with energy that says, "Congratulations! Your adult life has just begun!" My adult life began in 2012 when I picked up these plates at a charming storefront on 15th Street. Walking out of the store, I knew my life had changed forever.
I remember the thoughts. These aren't my parent's plates and they aren't my roommate’s plates either. These are my plates, in what will supposedly be my
kitchen. Despite the pack of eight, I remember the realization of actually only technically needing one plate, one fork, one spoon, one knife. I was one person, after
all. What a beginning of your adult life way to feel.
As I put away the wine glasses this morning and then
organize the coffee cups, I am hit with a surprise wave of gratitude. I acknowledge that since the buying of the plates, there have also been six years worth of evenings filled with wine, stories, good food, belly laughs. There have been groggy mornings that turn into long days of hard work, and the plates have been there for all of it. These are the artifacts of our lives, memorialized in the background of all our comings and goings, subtle and inanimate, but consistent and highly personal.
The irony of course is that there is really no such thing as consistency. A plate could break at any time, and shatter into a million tiny pieces.
