Dishes

We completed the annual spring inspection of the meadow and have begun preparations for the camp out. Today, I did dishes.

Ever since the lovely Louise set up the recycling center, the camp out's impact on the land has decreased significantly, but not entirely. Every fall, Sequoia and I spend a day putting the meadow to bed. We roll up the carpets and stash them in the cat shack along with the stray chairs, wash the kitchen gear and stash it in a rubber tub, pick up the garbage and make one last recycling haul. Young Cooper often burns trash for us at the end of the camp out; that kid likes nothing better than to stir some stinky ashes. By the time he gets in the car to go home, he looks like a character out of Oliver Twist. Tom kindly takes the household garbage to the dumpsters out on the end of the road. Louise, Peter and Lowell often take a load to the recycling center. There's no telling how many loads of dishes Ruthe and Cat and so many other folks have done over the years (Peter usually does a load in the pre-dawn hours while making coffee, and this after a long night by the camp fire. It's quite impressive.) Despite all the help we receive, the meadow always needs some attention in the spring and fall.

I must have been busy last fall because I did a half-assed job on the dishes. I rinsed them off and stashed them in a box with an ill-fitting lid. On our recent meadow inspection, we found a wet, nasty mess waiting for us. I took it as a message from the cosmos that it was past-time for a thorough bleaching, washing and sorting of the kitchen gear. It's a cold, wet spring day, perfect for staying inside, so Sequoia and I gathered a big load and brought it up to the house. I washed for two hours. My hands feel like parchment paper, but I salvaged a lot of good gear and discarded a lot of trash.

I must be a closet conservative. I'll say this: I abhor waste.

Donations of all kinds are always gratefully accepted, but some things are more useful than others. Rather than bringing a sleeve of Solo cups, bring your own reusable cup. It should be something you don't mind breaking or losing, something visually distinctive enough to spot in a pile of dishes. Rather than bring a package of plastic forks, bring a couple of pieces of thrift store cutlery and add them to our growing pile.

That said, if you show up with a package of plastic forks, I'll be glad to have them. It's all about contributing.

Some day, I'll write the story of how I ended up in the middle of the Cascades with 40,000 hippies at my first Rainbow Gathering. I spent that first Gathering prowling the the periphery, confused and intimidated but deeply intrigued. I did not participate, but watched closely. The next year, I hiked into the Gathering carrying crate of oranges and distributed all of them before I reached the main site. I spent the week hauling wood and water for the kitchen, helping in the MASH tent, generally making myself useful. The stories I heard and the connections I made while performing these services were profound. They literally changed my life.

That's the lesson, isn't it? The act of connecting is just that, an act. It requires effort. You get out what you put in, but the reward always exceeds the effort.