autoanthropology

by Matthew Stokdyk

Documenting the rituals was tedious
and exhausting, and I never finished;
for the hands alone there were a thousand
spread over countless hours.

For each sink there was a specific sequence,
immutable and repeated at each encounter;
and when hands get washed a hundred times a day
there are a lot of different sinks to make rituals for.

At home it was least fraught;
so long as the hands were washed twice
in succession, it sufficed to satisfy
whatever was to be satisfied (but never really was),

though, of late, a peculiarity had developed,
that the hands were not “clean”
(whatever that may really mean)
unless the washing was finished with cold water.

Outside, in the world, it was all different.
At the parents’ house, the first washing
had to be in the bathroom sink
and at least two subsequent washings in the kitchen,

and, to dry, a separate towel was needed.
How he lived for so many years there,
with all that motion, remains perplexing
but a point for study nonetheless.

But forgetting the endless patterns of the old,
consider the new. Life was a scouting mission:
bathroom doors were the first obstacle,
push or pull. Push was, of course, preferable:

if it was push, the door would be held open (by foot)
to see if there were paper towels inside;
if not, the bathroom was abandoned.
But if the door was pull, and the need to wash desperate,

entrance was necessary, though it polluted the hand
and made washing inescapable.
Exiting would be easy, as a foot could push out,
regardless of towels; but if there were no towels

and the faucets were manual, a new complication arose;
when the washing was done, a hand
could not touch the faucet knobs, lest it be re-polluted,
and so a foot would be hoisted up to the counter,

while spinning awkwardly on the other leg,
risking balance and a fall to a floor of contagion,
simply to silence the water that was likely left scalding
for he could not adjust the temperature while washing.

In public, the total number of washings always had to be odd;
the first round of washing a day had to be three
and all subsequent washings in multiples of two;
and always five pumps of soap per washing

(per each washing, that is, not per each bathroom excursion),
and if the dispenser was manual, then soap
would be wiped at the base of the palm
and rinsed off separately before lathering

to cleanse the part that touched the pollution on the dispenser.
And then to scrub until no soap could be felt,
even if it meant bleeding and missing class.
And all that was just the start of it; I never finished.