Project Open Hand

In the kitchen at Project Open Hand, I was isolated at the end of a long row of shiny silver worktables. There, I united over 600 wheat dinner rolls with mini butter tubs, sealing them in “whole-y” matrimony inside clear plastic baggies.

Right hand and left hand simultaneously grab roll and butter

Drop in baggy (mounted on a machine and inflated by a small fan)

Twist baggy

Whack baggy into mechanical sealer to close with obnoxious red sticky tape

Toss into large tub

I imagined the diners’ struggles to unstick the persistent sticky tape in order to access their dinner. Said sticky tape falls into that same frustrating category as the tape strip along the top edge of CD cases, which separates anxious listeners from feasting on fresh musical delights.

Roll and butter, twist, whack, toss

Roll butter twist whack toss

Rollbuttertwistwhacktoss

My hand hurts

Roll butter twist with other hand whack with other hand toss.

All the while I contemplated Industrial Revolution-era child labor, how I felt dizzy with the repetitive movements, and what it is like for the millions who do jobs like this all day every day for years. Worn out joints, frozen brains.

After creating frustration for hundreds of diners, I graduated to the meal assembly line as a Brussels sprout scooper. I felt ridiculous trying to make conversation with the Vegetable Medley Scooper and the Coconut Encrusted Miscellaneous White Fish Disher-outer. We seemingly had nothing in common except our task – which should have been enough- but I couldn’t break into their world, be on their playing field. I was a 3 hour volunteer among multi-year full time employees. A skinny white girl amidst rotund black women. I didn’t know the words to the hip hop remixes everyone was singing along to. I wanted to ask so many questions, to connect, to be a scooper in solidarity.

Had I been there longer, maybe we would have connected. But all I did was scoop my Brussels sprouts and pass the tray to Delores (who plopped on the veggie medley and tossed or added a few sprouts to my never perfect scoop). I felt debilitated by the awkward repetitions of roll/butter bagging and Brussels sprout scooping. If I did this every day what would I think about? Would I make the motions my own? I had an itching urge to shed all of my isolation and dance on those shiny tables, to break it down to the remixes on the radio.