An Idea of Order

I think it was sometime in October that Charlie, after lugging in his share of the bulging plastic bags, started (without anyone asking) to put away the groceries. I could stand behind him and tell him a plastic container of toffee, the bananas and the receipt from the store don’t need to go in the refrigerator. But I have rather been waiting and seeing where he puts things away, where Charlie thinks that things should go—it’s a bit of a window into how Charlie sees the world and understands it to be ordered.

Bags of frozen items—vegetables, shrimp—are heaped in the middle the freezer. Boxes with frozen items end up on the top shelf of the refrigerator. A box of crackers is to be found in the cabinet above the sink along with a bag of tortilla chips—-and two bags of lettuce.

Last of all, Charlie puts away some containers of yogurt, just as you see in the photo. The wider one on the right goes in first, then the more slender Yoplait one—which Charlie is careful to set down with the narrow end on the bottom. The upside down letters are not the signal for how to set down this yogurt, nor is the foil cover: Charlie, as far as I can tell, is going for symmetry in yogurt placement. It’s the general shape of things, it’s contours, that he is looking at, and not so much the details of the letters on the label. Charlie also seems to group together foods by container (bags of chips and bags of lettuce in the cabinet), and, perhaps, by whether things are raw and not chopped up (bananas and onions, asparagus and apples, all end up in a heap on another refrigerator shelf).

I let the yogurts be: As you read, they are still in those positions, and I’m waiting to see what his next move will be.