ZythMC

I dyed fabric for forty-seven years. Not the kind you buy in a store, the kind that comes in bolts and is already the color it’s going to be forever. I dyed the kind that starts as nothing, white cloth that hasn’t decided what it wants to be, and I made it something. I worked in a shop that had been in my family for three generations, a place that smelled of indigo and madder and the particular sharpness of things that have been steeped in color for centuries. I’d take a piece of cloth, white and empty, and I’d put it in a vat of something I’d been preparing for weeks. I’d watch it change. I’d watch the color seep into the fibers, the way it spread, the way it settled, the way it became something that wasn’t white anymore. I did that for forty-seven years. I dyed fabric for wedding dresses and funeral shrouds, for curtains and tablecloths, for the clothes that people wore when they wanted to be seen and the clothes they wore when they wanted to disappear. I was a dyer. That’s who I was. That’s all I was.

I stopped dyeing four years ago. My hands gave out the way hands do when you’ve spent forty-seven years dipping them into vats of things that were never meant to touch skin. The chemicals, the heat, the constant immersion—it wore them down to something that couldn’t do the work anymore. The last piece I dyed took me weeks instead of days. I knew it was the last. I put my hands in the vat one more time, felt the color seep into the cloth, watched it become something that wasn’t white anymore. And then I closed the shop, turned off the lights, and went home to a house that was full of fabric I’d never dye. I sat in my chair, the one by the window, and I watched the light change on the colors I’d made. I’d spent forty-seven years making things that were not white. I didn’t know how to be in a world where everything was already the color it was going to be.

I tried to find other things to do with my hands. I tried painting, but the paint was too fast, too easy, too willing to become something without being asked. I tried gardening, but the flowers were already the color they were going to be, and they didn’t need me to change them. I tried cooking, but the food was gone as soon as it was made, and the color faded with the taste. I needed something that would stay. Something that would be there when I was done, that would hold the color I’d given it, that would remember what it was before I changed it. But I couldn’t hold the fabric anymore. I couldn’t dip my hands in the vats. I couldn’t watch the color seep into the fibers the way I’d watched it for forty-seven years. I sat in my chair, the one by the window, and I watched the light change on the colors that were already done. The ones that didn’t need me anymore.

My grandson came to visit that autumn. He was an artist, the one who’d inherited the eye for color, the one who’d sat in the shop when he was little, watching me work, learning the names of the things I made. He found me in my chair, the one by the window, doing nothing. He sat down beside me, the way he’d sat when he was little, watching me work, learning the things I taught him. He didn’t say anything for a long time. He just watched the light change on the colors with me, the way he’d always done, waiting for something he didn’t know how to name. And then he pulled out his laptop and showed me something. It was a casino site, the kind I’d never looked at, the kind I’d always assumed was for people who didn’t know how to make anything. He said he played sometimes, when he needed to stop looking for color, when he needed to be somewhere other than his own head. He said it wasn’t about winning, it was about the change, the way the game asked you to watch something become something else. He said I should try it.

I didn’t want to try it. I’d spent forty-seven years watching things change, watching white become blue, watching empty become full, watching the color seep into the fibers and make something that wasn’t there before. I didn’t need a game to teach me how to watch things change. But I was tired of watching the colors that were already done. Tired of sitting in my chair, waiting for something to become something it wasn’t already. I looked at the screen, at the cards, at the numbers that meant nothing to me. He’d pulled up a blackjack table, something he’d been playing for years, something he’d never told me about. I looked at the game, at the way it asked you to watch, to pay attention, to see the colors change the way I’d seen the fabric change. I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know how to watch something that wasn’t fabric. But I was tired of not watching anything.

I played that first hand like I dyed fabric—carefully, patiently, watching for the thing that would tell me what to do. I lost. I played another hand. I lost again. I played a third hand, watching for the color, the change, the thing that would tell me what was coming next. I lost again. I sat there, losing, and I felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time. I felt like I was watching something become something else. The way I’d watched the white cloth become blue, the way I’d watched the color seep into the fibers, the way I’d watched something empty become something full. I played for an hour that afternoon, sitting in my chair, watching the light change on the colors I’d already made. I lost more than I won, but I didn’t care. The game asked for my attention in a way that nothing else had since I stopped dyeing. It asked me to watch, to be present, to accept the change without needing to make it happen. It was the same as dyeing. In dyeing, you put the cloth in the vat, and then you watch. You don’t know what color it will become. You don’t know if it will be the color you wanted. You just watch. You just wait. You just be present with the thing that is becoming something it wasn’t before. And here, in this game, it was the same. You made the decision, and then you watched. And you accepted what came, whether it was the color you wanted or not.

I started playing every day after that. I’d sit in my chair, the one by the window, and I’d open my laptop. I’d go to the Vavada official website and sit down at a table. I played blackjack, the game that asked me to watch without dyeing, the game that asked me to be present without needing to make it the color I wanted. I lost more than I won, but I didn’t care. I was learning. I was learning that there were things I could watch without needing to change them. That I could be present without needing to make them the color I wanted. That the colors I’d already made weren’t done. They were just waiting for me to watch them change in a different way.

I started to win more than I lost after a few months. Not because I was lucky, but because I was watching. Because I was paying attention to what was in front of me instead of what I hoped would come. Because I was treating the game the way I’d treated the fabric—with patience, with attention, with the willingness to watch what came. But different now. Because in the game, there was nothing to dye. There was only the watching, the decision, the acceptance. The money grew slowly, not enough to change my life, but enough to change something else. Enough to make me feel like I wasn’t just watching the colors that were already done anymore. Enough to make me feel like I was watching something that was still becoming.

I started to go into the shop after that. Not to work, not to dye, just to be there. I’d sit among the vats that were empty now, the fabric that was already the color it was going to be, the things I’d made that were done. I’d watch the light change on them, the way the colors shifted with the sun, the way they became something different in the morning than they were in the afternoon. I’d watch them the way I’d watched the cloth in the vat, waiting to see what they would become. My grandson came to visit sometimes. He’d sit with me, not dyeing, just watching. He’d tell me about the colors he was finding, the ones that weren’t in the fabric, the ones that were in the light and the shadows and the things that didn’t need to be dyed to be beautiful. He’d tell me that the best colors were the ones you didn’t make. That the watching was the thing, not the dye that came after.

I still play. Not every day, but on the days when I need to remember, when I find myself watching for something that needs to change, when I forget that I don’t have to make anything to be present. I sit in my chair, open my laptop, go to the Vavada official website and sit down at a table. I play the way I learned to play in those first weeks, when I was learning to watch without dyeing. I make decisions. I accept the outcomes. I let go of the need to make it the color I wanted. I think about the fabric I dyed, the colors that are still in people’s houses, the ones that are fading and changing and becoming something I never planned. I think about the game that taught me to watch without dyeing. I think about the Vavada official website, the door that opened to something I didn’t know I was looking for. A game that asked me to watch without changing. A game that asked me to be present without needing to make it the color I wanted. A game that taught me that the only thing that matters is the watching itself, the being present, the acceptance of what comes whether it’s the color you wanted or not. I spent forty-seven years making things blue. I’ve spent the last four learning to watch them fade. And that’s the best color I ever saw.