Monday, September 24, 2007

Vitamin Laundry


Yesterday morning, the hum of the dryer and the rythmic chug of the washer started my jam-packed morning. I felt a little overwhelmed to begin with - I haven't done laundry in a while, and it piles up pretty fast with three kids, most of whom have bed-wetting issues. But as the morning progressed, I began to remember all that I adore about laundry.
The smell of it (clean, of course)
The feel of it, warm and fresh against my face when it's fresh from the dryer.
The hominess of it - such a loving thing to do for one's family!
All the deeper connections one can draw, while pondering life in general and fresh starts in particular, while one removes stains, sorts colors, and loads and unloads the laundry in various stages of cleanliness.
The memories laundry inspires: I recall standing with my mom or brother and folding the family's laundry, which we always piled in a heap on my parents' bed, and carrying on conversations while we made order out of not only our collective stacks of socks and undies, but our unfolding (ha!) lives as well.
The rythm of it. Aside from family meals and, for some people, church, laundry's one of the few things that must go on even if all else falls apart.
The joyous privilege of having been able to make sense of something. When all the socks have been accounted for, every last little shirt and pajama bottom tucked in its respective and appropriate nest, when I place the laundry basket back on its perch over the dryer ... I experience a moment of womanly Zen. Very little can be sorted out in only an afternoon - but laundry is one of those things. How much sweeter would the world be if we all did laundry instead of turning to our other habits when the going got tough? I know I'd have saved a few hundred Twinkies from consumption, not to mention chocolate bars and ice cream!
But the real glory of laundry didn't hit me until sometime last evening. My family drove in around dinner-time, and I still hadn't finished my chore. My parents' guest bed lay under a semi-sorted kaleidoscope of Jared's socks, my jeans, washrags, and pool towels ... and still, the dryer hummed merrily on.
And so, just before bedtime, I found myself standing with my dad (who wouln't make eye contact with any of the undies in the pile) and my husband (who tried to pretend like he was afraid, too) -- sorting and folding the last still-warm load. We chatted a bit -we made small talk. But as we stood working, I realized that the thing I love most about laundry is the togetherness that it brings. All our various clothing items - stained, ugly, unmentionable, and mundane - get thrown together in a big soup pot, banged around a whole lot, rinsed and washed a few times, and then banged around some more 'til they're fresh and clean. Sometimes they get all twisted togetether in awkward embraces - a bedsheet with some work khakis, a sock inside some sweats - but in the end, it's the pressing closeness that makes them all clean. They soak together, wash together, probably scrape and pull and yank on each other ... and in the end ... they are beautiful once again.
It's times like these that make me appreciate my life so very much. Sure, it's awkward to fold my G-string panties with my dad standing right there. But I'd rather have him there, working uncomfortably close to me, than off elsewhere and not sharing his goodness and life and wisdom with me. The same goes for my brother, my husband, my kids (who do indeed fold laundry AT LAST!), my mom, and any other person who happens into my life. I need them. They need me. Together, in the end and if we do well, we will have created a much more beautiful version of ourselves than we could have done without help.
And that's what I love about laundry.

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