Thursday
Apr152010
Wet Laundry
April 15, 2010 * * * * * Posted by: guest blogger 
On Wednesdays when Inge and I meet at the Tap Room after work, we carry in the load of our University jobs like a big basket of wet laundry. I’ve just come from hectic Wednesday walk-in advising, and she has had non-stop meetings all day. The accumulation of unanswered email and streams of needers never ends, like waves at the shore, the sun rising, dishes returning to the sink or clothes filling the hamper. Whichever of us arrives first asks Sean for two glasses of Pinot Grigio. Choosing what we eat will come later.
Last Wednesday, it was about an hour into our margherita pizza, spinach salad and conversation, at the point when we’d vented the worst of the day, and email inboxes had faded out of vision, when thoughts and ideas blossomed again, like purple and yellow crocuses in a brown landscape. We are busy women who fight overload, and guilt for what we can’t get done, which can keep us from remembering that we love our lives and our jobs. Inge, a native German, has a PhD in intercultural communication and helps shape one of the largest international study programs in the U.S. I, who love conversation, relationships and writing, get to talk and write with students about their academic lives. We are among the very fortunate ones who a) have a job and b) get to do what we love. There just happens to be too much of it, and the nagging suspicion that we could, or should do even more, and do it better. It was at this point that the words came out of my mouth: Who we are is enough.
This fragrant declaration hung over the table, waiting for us to inhale it. In our core we said, Yes. But how do we keep carrying that heavy wet laundry? And after that, where will creative energy come from? When my husband put up a clothesline out in the orchard on our 5-acre hobby farm a few years ago, I discovered something. I had always liked folding clothes and linens, one of the tasks of life connecting me with my organized ducks-in-a-row self, a pause, a meditation. With the clothesline, the ritual got extended: Load the wet laundry in a seagrass basket, strengthen my arms carrying it 100 feet to the line, take each wet item from the basket, grab a couple wooden clothespins, clip . . . clip. Take another, clip . . . clip . . . all while standing in soft grass, a breeze stirring my hair and cotton skirt, surrounded by apple and locust trees with the low morning sun weaving its warp fingers through the weft of the trees, and feel inside a connection with women of the centuries, such as Griet in Girl with a Pearl Earring. I realized that I love it: the laundry joy.
Lao Tzu said, At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want. Sometimes what you want becomes a heavy load. Talking with a friend, meditating, slowing long enough to look inside and remember what you want, and, realizing that what you want is what you have, are essential to get through the work of your life. Who you are is enough.
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Special guest post today by Ruth of Synchronizing. Thank you for joining us here today, Ruth, and for your wonderful story and image.
Reader Comments (24)
Oh, I love the imagery here..as much as I love laundry air dried outside!
Such comfort taken in this seemingly everyday ordinary task of hanging laundry. A ritual. A routine. A daily practice..and - yes - a reminder in so many ways that who we are IS enough. Beautifully written and illustrated!!
Thank you - Ruth - for joining us today!!!!
good to see that holga - ruth :)
Dear, dear sister Ruth! Welcome to my new home. :D You're my kid sister but you always were the better writer. Ik ben zo trots op jou. I'm so proud of you.
Ruth-
Wow again. I want to be in the wet laundry club. I think I've slowly been coming to the epiphany you so eloquently describe: who we are is enough. I'm going to carry that thought around with me for the next few days and see what happens. Thanks for pointing me to this blog.
Mary
Flat Rock Creek Notebook
Oh to have this much writing talent in just one of my pinkie fingers.... I would die and go to heaven.
Di
The Blue Ridge Gal
Some of these modern time saving devices have robbed us of something intangible that nourished our lives. It's all rush rush now. the tasks that gave us time to think and reflect are done by machines now and made our bones weak.
Ruth, I smell a book title. With a best-selling book behind it. You've already got the cover photo.....
Lovely post and something to tuck away in the laundry basket that is my head.
Beautifully said, Ruth. Inspiring even.
But I think I'll stick with our front loading dryer for a while longer.
Oh my gosh, I laughed out loud when I opened your post because I also wrote about "laundry" today! Must be something in the air...laundry and the meaning of life. This was excellent, and all so very, very true.
one of my most favourite things in the world is when I'm hanging wet laundry on a hot summer day and must drape the damp sheet over my shoulder to keep it from falling while I clip clip clip. That sensation is heaven.
A beautiful post, with a great shot. You really have a way with words. Thanks for this post.
i love hanging my laundry out on the clothesline. there is something so soothing about it.
i clicked on over to your blog and am in love with your chickens! when we moved from our farm, i had to leave all my "girlfriends" behind with my mom and i miss them everyday (and twice when i have to buy a dozen eggs at the store!!). they are so charming and fun to watch. and the eggs.... yum.
and great picture! really captures the quiet, peacefullness.
Such a lovely post Ruth and confirmation that the flair for beautifully written and visual expression runs in the family!
The Universe has once again sent the message that I need to hear through the gifted words of another. Thank you for being that conduit by sharing a bit of your heart and also reminding me of Lao Tzu ... couldn’t have been more perfectly timed.
Peace to you …
You have taken mere words and transformed them into something very special. You paint pictures..."the low morning sun weaving its warp fingers through the weft of the trees" - pure magic. Wise words to remember, "who I am is enough". Now, I must know...do you have "naked laundry day"? :D
This is a good sistership.
And being at peace with quotidian rhythms is a gift.
Beautiful...I've never enjoyed laundry much and I now know I need a different perspective. Thank you for your writing.
Wow - what a gifted writer you are, Ruth! This was absolutely beautiful! I loved the imagery of it, I felt the camaraderie between the women, I felt their relief in accepting who they are. Just wonderful!
Absolutely love the image that goes along your wonderful post! So beautifully written!
'who you are is enough' so true.
These few words are so simple said, how many people would dare to say that they are happy with themselves and with what they have???
Dear Ruth this is a wonderful post, many congratulations with it, you write so well.
A great picture with it, it is too bad we don't live closer, I would love to come over with Ginnie and have tea or coffee and some long talks....who knows, some day.
hi ruth, i love that picture - it's got a timeless quality about it, looks very old and somehow makes me nostalgic for something, not quite sure what, but it does :)
I had a teacher in nursing school who said to me -You are the just good enough mother. Winnicott? Then she explained to me that It mean that I am the just good enough mother to my children at that particular point in time. I was stressed by school and exams and asked her for advice.
I have used that in other areas of my life and I feel it has helped me realized that I'm good enough!
I, too, love "doing" laundry...there is just something magical about putting the soiled items into the machine, taking them out, drying either on the clothesline or in the dryer, folding, and ironing...something very calming for me...perhaps it is that feeling of renewal and of things being "right" with the world again. THANK YOU for expressing it better than I can!
Beautiful, beautiful words, sentences, great symbolism - très fluide. I could see pieces of yours like this in a small book, with lovely illustrations – think about it when you are no so busy. In the meantime, I am pleased to say that I have never done any laundry. In France, we had a laundry woman or my mother would send it out and here in this country, since I told my husband when we married that I was not capable of doing laundry, he has always done it. Actually I hear him in the laundry room right now, and I am not kidding. Voila!