I have grown fond of laundry. Actually, all repetitive tasks are largely underappreciated. Rhythmic and cyclical, laundry can be both calming and productive, simultaneously getting something done while pushing away any cramped, worried thoughts carried around all day like held breath. I really can’t think about those things right now, I’m busy doing the laundry.
Tending to the subconscious is a source of calm. Over the years, laundry has been a welcome distraction from the weight of an argument or the anxiety over a test result, and maybe something useful to do as I waited impatiently for the return of an overdue teen out there somewhere in the night who had suddenly forgotten how to use their flip phone we bought for them. What can I do while I imagine them dead on the side of the road? Well, there’s always a little laundry. The mind processes as the body moves.
Doing another person’s laundry can be an act of love. When we first arrive we’re a little soiled and we produce a tremendous amount of excrement and spittle. Someone who loves us notices and buys special soap, then washes and re-washes the things that touch our tiny bodies, cycling repeatedly like the turn of an old water wheel fed by a reservoir of unconditional love. Weary new parents, overwhelmed and under-rested tell us they really don’t want to be a bother, they are not fragile, only tired, fatigued from pitching too many innings, and yes, it would be just fine if we helped with the laundry.
Grown children return from college or first apartments without easy access to washers and dryers or the funds to run them. We miss these people we like so much more now that they live elsewhere and we willingly touch their dank fabrics pressed together for weeks. Sure, you can do my laundry, if it will make you happy.
At the end of our lives, someone who feels we are too precious to be dismissed will do our laundry. They’ll consume any repetitive task in an effort to move away from the anticipatory grief filling the room like smoke, preemptive missingness washing over us as we sit holding hands. If only I could do your laundry a little while longer.
There’s a duality in giving away our time, it seems like we should be left with less when what we end up with feels like more. Laundry, like so many other repetitive tasks, quietly emerges as generosity to others and to ourselves. May you find comfort in your chosen distraction and be reset by a recurrent task, efficiency nicely reframed as resilience and the tending of your own heart.
Let the cycle lift us.
Copyright (2021) Suzanne Bayer. All Rights Reserved