Life in the Spin Cycle

My laundry has, in the past few months, gone almost entirely to darks. Which, okay, doesn’t sound significant, except to say I’ve been working some very long hours and my uniform is, of course, the traditional navy blue. Cargoes, sweatshirts, polos, socks - all blue.

Does anyone else out there gauge their life status in terms of laundry?

Twenty-one and single meant laundry was a once-a-week thing. At Mom’s.

And as a newly-wed, I ironed my husband’s work shirts – can you imagine? Just so, with a crease down the sleeve. Of course, I didn’t get it right – ever – and I finally tossed the laundry basket across the room ( maybe out the window, but it was open, I swear) and that was the end of husband laundry, for a time.

Baby laundry. Itty bitty onesies and blankets and bibs.

“Mommy’s jeans, Rachel’s shirts, Philip’s socks.” My youngest liked to sit on top of the dryer and instruct. Towhead in footie pajamas, chocolate chip mess on his chin.

(Sometimes I still see a trace of the toddler’s smile on the adult’s face.)

Store clerk uniform, art smock, baseball jerseys.

Detasseler’s clothes, some of the worst – mud caked on jean cuffs and ground into knees, athletic socks forever gray.

            Football gear – odor like none other, except for – okay, maybe – whatever we wore to the last house fire.  

The dress clothes my daughter needed for her hostess job. Lay flat to dry, good grief. Wash with like colors. Don’t leave them in the hamper with the football clothes, ugh.

Cigarette smell on tee-shirts, cologne scent in summer dresses, five dollar bills rinsed smooth and pocket knives tossed in the spin cycle. Kids growing up in record time, a blink, a heartbeat, done.

So. Nowadays, my job is colored navy blue, but I still get the occasional flannel shirt or fuzzy pajama bottoms emerging from the chaos in my laundry basket  - remnants of children semi (okay, mostly) grown. And I have the new addition of husband shirts again – these are pocket tees, no creases!  Life is hurtling forward – morphing and changing and moving moving moving. Hurry up – sort and fold!