Love and the Act of Folding a Load of Laundry

Work, when those routine tasks the day to day stuff don’t get done, life just isn't the same. But what do the cycles, the endless repetition mean? Each task is different but the unerring and seemingly unending recurrence unifies them. Looking at cooking and you see the importance of this work. Without food we die. With bad food we are unhappy. Preparing a meal can be an act of art, or a manifestation of love, or it can just be drudgery.

Making a bed can be an act of thanks. Crisp corners and smoothed out covers can show a centered self offering up a melody in linen that which at the right moment just soars. A vacuumed floor can be the soft coda played by piano at the end a solid and pleasant pop song.

Some people just throw their cleaned underwear in the drawer. Me, I fold everything. I know it isn't the kind of fold that you would receive from a laundry or one you would find on the shelves of an old time high end department store. But look in the dresser of anyone in my home and everything is folded. Sometimes it seems pointless this act. For me the choice to impose this odd kind of order is an "up yours" to the universe's inevitable path to disarray and random distribution of all things.
Do these endeavors I carry out mean anything in the long run? Will my choices to clean and wash and try and maintain order focus my children's minds? No I don't think so.

As I move from bedroom to bathroom and then to office I pick up the remnants of life lived and no longer wanted. One waste basket empties into another and then down the steps I will walk. Outside I will go and then the aggregate will be emptied into the big city issued rolling trash bin. On Tuesday one son will draw the green wheeled cube to the curb. On Wednesday another will pull the bin back to the edge of the house. The only meaning they are taking from these acts right now is that I am a mean old man.

Long ago these tasks were all done for me. I never thought of what the doing of such work required of the person who held the obligation for this habitual labor before me. In retrospect I realize there was love in the doing of these things. It may of course be that the love was something deeper than I can comprehend. The tasks that were carried out by my mother were tinged with a harder view of life than I have, she being one who grew up in the depression. I wonder if I had paid more attention whether I would have gained greater knowledge of what matters in life?

As I go about my tasks I wonder if my children are picking up anything about what it means to live from me? Putting away t-shirts collected at camps and hockey tournaments I am unsure what values are being imparted to them and from whom.

Do we learn by watching, really? I am not sure on this one either. I didn't learn from my mother so many things that would have helped. I can't cook well. Really I am only marginal at making an edible meal. I ran away when my aunts and uncles were working the quilting frame in my grandmother’s living room. When it came to my father the learning issue was a two way street. He was tired and I was a mutant. Some basic things like a certain level of stoicism came from simply being near him. But simple skills like wielding a hammer or using a torch, these were not transferred. As a result my house is falling down around me in disrepair.

A time will come when I tire of the day to day work of my home. It is late August on the calendar and also on the calendar of my life. I carry out the tasks that must be done before summer ends in addition to the day to day work that is required. In a month I think I will still occupy this house. In a year I will probably still live here in this city and state. But with each day my body wears down just a little bit more. My spirit also seems to be a little less certain.

Will my children tire of me by the time my December sun is setting? Or, will they have come to the understanding that a job well done is an expression of love, of faith and a rejection of nihilism?

Taking care of the mundane stuff, doing the tasks that go unseen is an act of thanks. By quietly performing these things you are expressing gratitude for life if nothing else. By doing these acts with focus and care you are expressing appreciation for the opportunity to be connected with those around you.

Before the day is done I will have washed several loads of laundry. The trash will be taken out. My bedroom will be cleaned and organized. The bed will be made. Most likely if I remember where I stashed it I will spray the place with Caldrea's Lavender Pine Linen spray. Hopefully I will have sorted my desk and my checkbook will be updated. Will my work leave a trace? No. My efforts will never produce something with artistic weight of Thomas Wolfe's Of Time and the River. But my acts will make at least three other people's lives a little bit easier. By doing what I do I will give them a bit of my love, a bit of my thanks for making my life all the better for their mere presence in it.

If you ever get a chance listen to a song by Iris Dement called My Life. Her words capture all of what I have been trying to say in a much more beautiful way. If I could sing I would sing it as I work my way through these tasks. When I lay down this night it will be okay.