Again last night I dreamed the dream called Laundry.
In it, the sheets and towels of a life we were going to share,
The milk-stiff bibs, the shroud, each rag to be ever
Trampled or soiled, bled on or groped for blindly,
Came swooning out of an enormous willow hamper
Onto moon-marbly boards. We had just met. I watched
From outer darkness. I had dressed myself in clothes
Of a new fiber that never stains or wrinkles, never
Wears thin…
From “The Mad Scene” by James Merrill
While it’s rare to see a clothesline in the United States, it’s a normal part of the landscape in the French countryside. There’s something indescribably comforting about watching clothes flap in a gentle breeze under a hot summer sun or a gray winter sky. The French don’t normally air their “dirty laundry” in public – their problems or family secrets – but they do, ironically, reveal themselves in the clothing and linens hanging on laundry lines in public view.
Laundry aphorisms are plentiful. We iron out our problems, sort through things, acquire a stain on our reputation and air our grievances. Coming clean often reveals the essence of who we are. And there are always wrinkles in the fabric of life. Wrinkles also mark the passage of time. Why do we find ourselves confronted with a series of personal losses as we age after we’ve accumulated so many riches along the way? Can’t we just linger in the beautiful, flap in the breeze, or hover in a quiet lull, rather than face the inevitable crescendo of endings? Why can’t we stay in the now since it’s physically impossible to be anywhere else?
By practicing mindfulness – the yoga of daily life – in simple, repetitive tasks we can, quite literally, lose our minds and focus on the here and now. The mind is quiet. There is no attachment to the past or future. If we can be here now, as Ram Dass said, wood is chopped, water is carried and life goes on, moment by moment. Patterns unfold and are folded again, just like laundry.
