Time and Tide

On Saturdays I do the wash. I’m not complaining. Two people do not accumulate a huge amount of dirty clothing. I remember doing laundry twice a day when I had babies, and then again when I had teenagers who changed their clothes five times a day, throwing each change into the hamper even if it was clean. Now it’s usually three loads: one dark, one light, one linens. A warehouse-sized box of detergent can last for six months. The laundry is off the kitchen so there are no precarious trips up and down the basement stairs, and I can work on a soup or bake bread while in earshot of the machines. A nice rhythm to my week, sweetened by the fact that I’d had two kids before enjoying the luxury of machines I did not have to share, nor fill with quarters. Always an urban girl, I did my laundry in the company of strangers and a good book. The first thing I did when I moved into our new home was put in a load of towels and leave the house to do errands… for several hours. A thrill to come home to it still in the washing machine, not a wet pile on a dirty laundromat table.
With unusual orderliness, I fold it all the minute the dryer quacks that it’s done. I think as I fold. I think about all kinds of stuff. Mostly I reminisce. The t-shirts from a vacation ten years ago. A college sweatshirt bought someone’s freshman year  – in the nineties. Christmas socks from a cousin, before we stopped talking to each other. Sheets that were wedding gifts. A bathrobe that replaced my old one when it shrouded our dead dog. The two dozen men’s black dress socks bought on the advice of my grandfather, who wisely pointed out that we’d never had to worry about them matching. The kitchen towels my son refuses to use when he visits because he has deemed them unsanitary. A pair of jeans my daughter borrowed about two years ago and has since returned – deliciously broken in. A once-pink nightgown someone gave me when that daughter was born, the elastic around the sleeves brittle and crumbling. More socks, from a friend’s trip to Belgium. Another dishtowel from someone’s roommate’s trip to Paris. The beach towel our new puppy slept on in the car when we picked her up from the breeder. Patriots sweatpants we have all shared and hated, because they have no pockets.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the drawer-full of white undershirts I fold every week. When I was first married, I felt vaguely sorry for myself that I had found a man who shared this wardrobe practice with his father and mine. (By the way, it’s an interesting indicator of which generation a man belongs to. Anyone over 60 will only wear a crew neck with a shirt and tie, or a v-neck with an open collar. They’d never be caught dead wearing an open-collared shirt with crew neck undershirt showing. Conversely, the 40-and-under guys wears their shirts open, with the undershirt showing.) I will remain diplomatically silent on that issue. They are called undershirts for a good reason.

I  admit there were times when I would have happily thrown them all out the window. And there were times when I did throw them across the room in anger, feeling overwhelmed by all the pleasures of motherhood and domestic goddessness. The damned undershirts, the damned dog poo, the broken dishwasher, the ear infections on a Friday of a holiday weekend. I fantasized about setting them on fire in the driveway.

But while I wasn’t paying attention, my resentment morphed into gratitude which deepens every day. Like my partner, they are well-broken-in. They are history. They are part of what I liked about him then, and what I like now. Despite the detergent and fabric softener, despite the Oxyclean, they still always smell like him. And each one that I pull out of the dryer and fold is a reminder I am delighted that we are still here, still dancing in the kitchen. Where I can hear the dryer.