Paper Towels
She didn't believe in them. Never had. Well, not since the hippie moved
in with her mother back in the late 70s. He labeled every bottle in the
house, got rid of all the bad detergents and toxic producing cleaners
and replaced the paper towels with cloth rags. Being a rather beautiful
man with precious taste, he didn't simply put up some dirty old
terry-cloth numbers, but instead he cut up old saris his mother had
brought from India when she came in the 40s.
Along with beautiful fabrics used as rags, he brought a new
sensibility to the dinner table. Curries. Stir fry with deep purple
eggplant the size of a civilized zucchini before the summer turned long
and they grew into giant unwieldy things, sweet corn fresh from the cob
and Zachariah's farm on Hood River.
Before he moved into their house, he had been living in a warehouse
with a giant rolling door and wooden beams. The rain leaked down through
the roof and onto the hay spread on the floor in the big open space
that held an old cider press. She didn't want to admit that the almost
rotten apples which came in on the back of a rusty 1950s Chevy tasted so
good as juice, but one couldn't avoid the sour sweet goodness that
tasted the way autumn smelled, wet and loamy.
Everything seemed to sparkle after he came into their lives -
ordinary objects were named, extraordinary textures lined the towel bars
and walls and ceilings. Stars were painted on walls and a moon was
carved into the dark wood of the bathroom door. Plants were suddenly
crawling across the bare walls, creating the feeling of being in Max's
jungle with the Wild Things.
extraordinary!
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