A neighbor leant me Isabella Rosselini’s memoir Some of Me. I learned that her mother, Ingrid Bergman, loved to clean and instilled in her the same sense of how to do it properly. For me, laundry is the domestic chore I like best. I remember the first time I washed my boyfriend’s clothes with mine. I was nineteen. The intimate act of folding his long white socks was more meaningful to me than sex. I had had sex with many boys by then, but I had never washed their clothes!
There are many levels of pleasure to be had doing laundry. First is the act of gathering. Not all dirty clothes are in the tall hamper I bought when we built our house eleven years ago. Some are hanging over the end of the bed, or on a doorknob in the bathroom. Hunting for John’s tee shirts takes me into his office and out into the garage where he’s flung them over half-finished speakers. Some of his clothes make it into the laundry basket in his bathroom, which is a rattan waste basket that used to belong to Diane. So right there I’ve made a connection to two things I miss so much: my beautiful home and my beautiful friend.
When we moved here, the dial on the washer that sets the water level on our washer broke off. Luckily it was set in the medium position. I never liked doing gigantic loads anyway. I do one white load and one dark load every week. Most weeks I do a third load, on Laundry Day #2, which may be towels, or doggy blanket, or whatever is left over.
My favorite part of the process is drying. I have three drying racks. One is stainless steel, collapsible. The other is wooden, collapsible. This I found on Longview Lane East on trash day and brought home. It’s perfectly good except some of the rods are bent. It too reminds me of “home.” The third one was purchased with Blue Chip Stamps that we collected in booklets when I was growing up. We also collected S&H Green Stamps. It was my job, after returning from the grocery store, to put the stamps in the book. Originally the stamps came in sheets of small stamps and I’d have to use a sponge to wet them and stick them in. But then they added bigger stamps and you only needed a strip of five per page which was more convenient.
When the booklets were full my mother and I would go to the redemption store. That’s where I selected the free-standing towel rack that I’ve taken with me every time I’ve moved since 1968. I use it now in my bathroom to hold my two white hand towels, which are what I use to dry off after a shower and to dry my hair. My full size bath towel is hung over the shower just to add color to the room and keep out some of the afternoon sun that comes through the privacy glass. I use the big towel when I take a bath and have to walk through John’s office to get to the tub.
So, after a load of laundry has washed, one by one I toss small items into the dryer and run it on fluff, while I set up the drying racks. This removes dog and cat hair and takes out some wrinkles. Some items like bras or the wonderful lingerie Christina has designed over the years never go in the dryer at all. When small items have fluffed I take them out and throw in the sheets. Then my favorite part: arranging everything on the racks.
Underpants hang from the four corners, socks line up neatly all facing the same way, small towels and tee shirts release fragrant moisture into the house.
During the course of the day, items will be turned and rearranged and inevitably Audrey will show up and jump into the orange plastic tote basket in which I’d carried everything to the laundry room. This is the same basket I almost threw out after Amber died because I was afraid it would make me to sad to see it, she loved riding around in it so much. I used to carry her all over the house, all seven pounds of her. Now my fifteen-pound cat jumps in and takes up the entire space, her face pressed against one end, her tail escaping out the top. She likes to be carried too, but she’s so heavy I just give her short little trips to different parts of the house and plop her down.
While I’m writing or eating or talking on the phone water is evaporating from wet laundry until it is completely dry, reminding me that nothing in life is static, although it may appear so at times.
Making my bed is easier these days. Audrey is not into attacking the sheets as I toss them across the bed, as other cats in my life did.
Phoebe’s favorite thing was a sheet of tissue paper I’d place on the made bed. She’d run and slide into it and rustle around on it. Every few weeks I’d have to replace it. She also loved Macy’s paper shopping bags. I’ve kept one in her memory. It’s hanging in the laundry room with paper bags in it. Phoebe died in 1994.
Tonight when it’s time for bed, I’ll pull back the covers to a sheet with no cat hair, drool or dead skin on it. I will feel like a guest in a luxury hotel as I slip in my weary body and rest my head on a freshly fluffed pillow. I’ll open Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories to where I left off this afternoon at the gym, reading on the recumbent bike. I’ll let go of sweltering Texas Germany
the war. I’ll savor the beautiful writing, which will cause me to pause from time to time to marvel at Isherwood’s craft that lives on in the printed word.
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