today's gratitude

I just noticed myself feeling a tad grumpy about the mountain of laundry that needs to be put away in Sam and Isaac's room. Immediately, I thought, "Hey I've got to turn this around! Maybe I can think about how grateful I am to have a washing machine, not to need to go to the river to wash the laundry." But then I realized that didn't have any real power in it, because I've no conscious memory of having to go to the river to do my laundry; it hasn't happened in this lifetime. Then it came to me: laundry has NOT always been this easy.

At first, though, laundry was so easy that I was unaware of it altogether: we had a maid who did my laundry and also put it away for me, as well as whatever I left on the ground, on my bed, on a chair. At sixteen, I went away to college, and I had NO CONCEPT WHATSOEVER of doing laundry. I tried to prevent the situation getting nasty by going to the dry cleaners, which I was familiar with, and either handwashing my underwear or buying more, all of which I had seen my mother do. I have a few vague, unpleasant memories of using a laundromat near campus; very few, very vague. It was just not part of my routine. When I graduated from college, I moved into a one bedroom apartment with a responsible roommate, Amy Dockser (hi, Amy!) who set a good example for me in so many ways. I learned to toss stuff in a basket when I took it off, and to carry it across the hall to the 4th floor laundry room on a regular basis. Still, I wore a suit, pantyhose and silk blouse 5 days a week, so dry cleaning was still a mainstay.

When I got married, at age 22, my mother gifted me with a housekeeper, who came once a week and took care of the laundry, riding up and down in the elevator, juggling the task while also cleaning our apartment. This perk extended through my move to Ohio until I divorced at age 29, although once Max came along, I was doing laundry daily. But the laundry machines were right in the kitchen, behind pretty, louvered doors, so it was very easy. Plus, Max's baby clothes were so cute and little, it was almost fun.

When I moved to an apartment with baby Max, laundry became considerably more difficult, but I was so excited to be on my own that I cheerfully rolled up my sleeves and got it done. Not only was the laundry located in the most remote corner of the basement, so that I had to go down two flights of stairs to the foyer, exit through the front door, walk around the house and down three steps to the back door, and then through the storage area, but once I got down there, I was almost certain to encounter Wayne, the drunk sign maker who lived down there in an illegal apartment.

Things became even worse after Wayne developed a crush on me, which seemed to intensify dramatically when I began dating other guys, so that I desperately wanted to avoid running into him. When I'd pull into the parking lot and see his van was not there, the first thing I'd think was: this seems like a good opportunity to get a load in! But unless he was far away installing a sign, Wayne was pretty certain to return at some point during any cycle of laundry. Once I realized he was stealing my panties, I was so horrified that I stopped doing the laundry there altogether. I was too busy working to do laundry while Max was at day care, so that it actually became easier to take the laundry with me whenever I went to visit my friend Heather's house in Cleveland (over two hundred miles away). Once, I drove from exit 224 to exit 169 with a sleeping toddler in the back seat before I realized I had left our two baskets full of laundry in Heather's basement and had to turn around and go back to get them.

Nowadays, I do laundry daily in front loading machines right on the ground level of my very own home. I'm going to go put away three or four days' worth of my boys' clean clothes now while the gratitude soaks into my every pore.