dirty laundry

We have it so easy. Pretreat, cram the dirty whites in the metal box, a cuppa detergent, close the lid, rotate the dial to hot, pull the knob and away it goes. The water fills, the soap bubbles and ...presto...thirty minutes ...all clean. I look towards these modern conveniences with such gratitude. I am entirely too lazy to hang my laundry on a line as I had to do as a child. I cringe at the thought of having to wash all of this by hand. My one day blitzkrieg of laundry would equate to a lifetime of daily washboards and basins. I welcome the ripe smell of baked elastic sets that sets me in motion to rescue the finished load of cooked waistbands. Barring any kamikaze dog rampage there is a satisfied sense of completion and quiet pleasure derived from the tidy towers of warm, sweet smelling clothes.

Let's all now imagine how this procedure would look 100 years ago, 200 years ago; long dresses and mud would create current day material for a nightmare. My mind wanders to this subject as my kids gravitate (under duress) towards the rivers and streams that run full this time of the year. I welcome muddy clothes and shoes as it is the clear indicator that they have engaged in the natural world. Pink cheeks and dirt = two thumbs up. 

Typically, I do our laundry in a one shot, full-on day devoted to the task. For one brief moment in time all the hampers are empty and I breathe into the illusion that I have control over my domain. It amazes me that with four people, the loads are evenly distributed. My daughter's wardrobe selection is the load called the box of melted crayons, my husband is all the darks and the white load is my bathrobe covered in brown dog fur and soot. There is a separate pile that falls in between the normal range. The color I could never comprehend as a child and why there where would ever be a need for it. Beige. Beige is better classified as a shade. Apparently I must have cast such a severe judgement on this "color" as a child I now have subconsciously and inadvertently surrounded myself with it. My most intimate textiles happen to be beige. In my mind, beige has equated itself with the illusion of peaceful invisibility. If I climb into my beige colored bed linens maybe I will disappear into my dreams? If I dry myself off with my beige colored towel my aura will be cleansed? If I wear my beige/gray t-shirt I feel at one with the nonchalant hipness of flow? If I put on my beige bra and panties my boobs don't sag? Beige is mystic. Beige makes me happy. Go figure.

My husband's black work pants need to be dry cleaned. For years I'd drop them off to Dot, the owner of the local dry cleaners. We'd smile and say in unison, "Another boring black pair of pants." But now after 10 years of raising kids, damn if these pants lead a more exciting life than I! Barcelona, Paris, Amsterdam, Africa, Egypt are a mere fraction of destinations these pants have visited. Now I drop them off with the new owner of the dry cleaners named Barrie who shares the space with the owner of Happy Rainbows (best store in town) and who also goes by the same name (!) and we all say in Unison, "Another kick-ass pair of pants."

My son's laundry takes on an entirely different approach. His weeks worth of clothes miraculously fits into one hot load with homemade laundry soap. His vortex of laundry includes precisely seven pairs of khaki pants, seven short sleeved soft shirts, seven pairs of socks, seven pairs of boxers and seven pairs of pajama bottoms. Yes, and I am the lazy advocate of the t-shirt he sleeps in that he wears to school the next day.

What piques my interest in doing his laundry, however,  is seeing how many plastic bags, candy wrappers and plastic toys emerge from this heap of soggy clothes.  The double pointed micro ninja pencils are my favorite. They have been loved, nurtured, sculpted into their live role as companion in homework, boredom and imaginary weaponry. Sometimes they surface. Sometimes they don't. What I learned this weekend is that sometimes they make their way back to the timed vault with the lint. The sentence in the dryer vent repository, for this batch of pencils, lasted for years.

There are opportunities to illuminate gratitude in everything. In your course of life and the choices you make it is your privilege to mine, mold and excavate your Soul. Air out your dirty laundry; wash it, dry it, fold it, stack it, forgive it, release it, allow yourself to move through it.  Now my random question to you is this:  How much of your micro Ninja Being is inadvertently stuck in the dryer vent?