The other night I was at a friend’s house when she was looking for a corkscrew. A bunch of us were in the kitchen watching the charade, while she was opening cabinets and drawers searching in vain for the darn opener.
One of the drawers was like the one everyone has stuffed with the lone rubber band, the chopsticks still in their paper sheath, the menu from the pizza place from your old neighborhood, the cup handle and cup you were going to glue on, the Scotch tape, the matches, the firestarter you were going to fill with butane, emory boards, loose and used, a few candles rolling around, five or six Italian coins, and the essential ubiquitous paper clips.
I said, “Yup, there’s the universal catchall, with everything but the thing you need.” Everyone laughed. But on the way home, I thought, Wow, growing up, my whole house was that drawer. You could never find anything ever. I don’t think we even had Scotch tape. We probably had had it at one time. But we didn’t replace things. Things broke and stayed broken. There were parts of everything, but not wholes of anything. When something cracked or crashed to the floor my father used to make a joke: “Girls, get my hammer.” The joke wasn’t funny. There was no hammer.
I remember a time early on in my marriage, my mother-in-law was visiting, and I was making spaghetti for dinner. And she said, “Dear, where is your colander?” and I said, “Um, try looking in the pantry.” As she was walking toward the pantry, I interrupted and said, “No, try under the sink.” As she was approaching the sink, I said, “Actually, it might be in that cabinet,” pointing, so she could switch directions again. She stopped and looked at me as if thinking, How did my son make such a big mistake? And she said very sweetly, “Nancy, everything has its place, and everything in its place.” I stopped and said, “Wow, that is soo cool.”
That night I called my sister and said, “Listen to this one.” I told her the whole colander thing, with my mother-in-law’s great piece of wisdom. And my sister said, “Yeah, my mother-in-law told me the same thing.” We burst out laughing.
Thinking about that scene now, I realize underneath that laughter were the tears we would have shed if we had been able to have more compassion for our mother, who had three jobs and no time to organize a household, and probably no extra money to even buy Scotch tape.
When we bought our cabin in Chilmark, it was empty, and I got the chance to decide where things could go. Nothing was strewn about. The drawers were empty. The closets were waiting to be filled. The shelves had nothing on them. The word seder means “order.” I felt like I was having a perpetual seder as I stocked and placed and cubbied.
I know where the scissors are. And I know where the potholders are. And I know where the corkscrew is. These days, my husband buys five of everything, so we don’t run out of anything. He knows not only where his hammer is, but he knows how to use it. But best of all I know where my colander is. And when I use it (which is often, because spaghetti is my favorite food), I get to think of my beautiful mother-in-law, my precious mother, and the drawer that surely shaped my sister and me.
