Valentines Day

I received two beautiful gifts yesterday on Valentines Day; one at the beginning of the day, one at the close. In between, I worked, washing dishes at Boston Pizza. I was part of a team, all working together to create a nice experience for others who came to celebrate the day by taking their loved ones out for dinner.

The day began with a gift from my friend whom I met through an internet writer's group. We have never met in person, but she and I have exchanged gifts and cards through snailmail, shared ourselves through email, and over the two years that we've come to know each other, we are good friends. It makes me happy to know that she is way over there in the States, thinking about me, and here I am in Canada, thinking about her.

I'd been tracking her gift as it journeyed with UPS, landed in a city on the mainland, then made the final leg of its voyage on the ferry here to my Island. Finally it arrived with the carrier, delivered right to my apartment door. I sat on my livingroom floor and opened it. What a nice feeling to know that she had sent me something, out of the blue, just because she wanted to.

I pulled off the tape, dumped out all the little foamy popcorns, and lifted out a pretty little card, read her kind words, and took out her gift - "everything you need to write a book". Several pads of narrow lined paper, pens, and a pen eraser. Perfect for me.

I took a bunch of photographs of the gift propped against my couch, loaded them into my p.c., only to realise I should have actually been in the picture. So I set up the camera again on its tripod, pressed the timer, and went through a comedy of errors trying to take a photograph of myself with this gift. Perhaps because it was first thing in the morning before I'd even washed my face, I couldn't seem to get it right! Everytime I played back the latest photo on my LCD screen, there was something hilariously wrong with the shot. In some, my eyes, amazingly, seemed to be staring in two different directions. In the one where I finally wore a decent expression, I'd fogotten to tug down my night gown.... Finally I got it right. It was a lot of fun. I set up the card on my shelf, arranged the gifts on my couch, and got ready for work.

Valentine's Day is traditionally the busiest day at Boston Pizza. I was scheduled to wash dishes from 1 pm till 8. What a madhouse! The dishes kept coming from all directions. Eight waitresses plunking down plates and cups and bar glasses and cutlery onto my counter. Chefs loading their plastic containers, pots, and utinsils on a large trolley. On the counter were metal woks, steaming hot from recent use. I had woks soaking in one sink. Dishes piled chest high. A bin filled to overflowing with knives, forks and spoons. Another bin with cheese encrusted bowls.

With the sprayer in one hand, I rinsed off the remains of pink icing hearts and chocolate cake, spagetti and pizza and salad and icecream and steak dinners. The smells coming from these dishes were delicious, reminding me that I should have eaten breakfast before I came to work! As the waitress buzzed this way and that, and the chefs were in a mad frenzy of cooking and baking, I stacked and sprayed and loaded and pushed flats of dishes into the washing machine, shoving them out the other side when the light blinked off. I stacked and carried loads of dishes weighing at least 25 pounds through the scullery to the shelves where I weaved my way through the caos of waitresses, lifted up on my toes to set the dishes down, and swiftly placed the variously patterned plates in their required positions, grabbed a cracker on my way back to start the process again. Each time the large garbage can filled up, I heaved out the enormous bag and carried it outside to the garbage bins. With the bin lid resting on my head, I grunted and strained to lift the weighty bag to my shoulders and tip it inside. Then I ran back in to my dishes that were already piling up in the five minutes I'd been away.

Waitresses were pouring over customer bills, blowing up heart shaped balloons, screaming with laughter when they popped, rushing to and fro with their arms laden with steaming plates of food. Chefs were calling out names and numbers, playing catch with bags of salad, chopping and slicing veggies and sliding pizza's into ovens and lifting the delicious concoctions out when they were done, arranging them onto plates and setting them on the counter to be taken away. The news that one of the customers was having a birthday sent all the waitresses out to sing.

To an onlooker, it would have looked disastrous as we all plunged past each other, ducking and weaving, sometimes crashing into each other and laughing and apologising and going on our way again. Somehow, no dishes were broken, no one was hurt. One of the chefs routinely lets out a loud Whoop! every time it gets frantic like this. Somehow his voice speaks for all of us.

Halfway through the day, the other dishwasher came on shift to help me out. We worked together perfectly, one rinsing, the other taking the dishes away. Occasionally one of us would move to take the others job for a while, we switched without needing to say anything. The end of my shift approached, and he asked, cautiously if I would stay longer. I did. We continued on. Finally at some point after nine, it slowed enough that I could go home. Upstairs in the washrooms I peeled off my soaking wet uniform, took off my cap and hairnet, took the full 20 minutes needed to comb my tangled hair, stepped into my dry clothes, my coat, piled my wet uniform in a plastic bag and tiredly walked the darkened streets home.

My apartment is especially inviting after a long day at work. I leave my bedroom lamp on to light my arrival. My goldfish have long since gone to sleep after the timer turned out their aquarium light. Sounds of traffic outside are muted. I turned on my computer, and while it was booting up, I changed into my night gown, washed my face, combed my hair, hung my uniform to drip dry overnight, and prepared my supper.

Sitting down in my big velvet desk chair, I opened my email. There I found a beautiful gift from another friend I met through an online writer's group, and have come to love over the two years we have known each other. From his first email, I knew he was special. In his quiet way he has supported me in all my personal journeys as I tried to make sense of my life, sifting through the baggage I'd been carrying for years. He is a beautiful person. A rare person in this world where purity is hard to find. His gift was a lovely soliloquey - a passage from a book he is writing. A string of perfect sentences. A sharing of talent, a new, exciting style for me to try in my own writing. I read his words several times, trying to choose one favourite line to quote in my email thanking him, and found myself highlighting the entire passage. What a lovely way to bring my Valentines Day to a close.