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Monday, June 2, 2014

Sorting Laundry (metaphor for life)


It is Monday. Which means three things.
One of the items I give preferential treatment to. 

1. Wash Day. (It is the only thing I have been consistent with my entire life) 
2. Trash Day (this has not been consistent, as the city has complete control on when this day occurs)
3. Dinner is an after thought (with all of that laundry going on, eating is not that critical to me)

The day starts early, as I am in a race with myself to get all of the laundry washed and dried before I hit the hay tonight. I like to pretend, once all of the hampers and laundry shoot is emptied, for the rest of the week, the laundry does not exist. I may or may not be successful with this pretense.

In general, my sorting goes like this:

1. Dark clothing
2. Light clothing, but not white or towels
3. Towels, but not rugs
4. Delicate, but not underwear
5. Shirts, but not sheets

And so on until all of the dirty clothes have found their people, so to speak. As I write this, I realize that I personify the laundry.* I have since I was a small child, helping my mother hang clothing out on the line. We did not have a dryer.

When I was a child, we had a washing machine we dragged out of the basement and out into the yard. We hooked up the hose to it, cranked away until the clothes were clean. Then we hung them up on the line. If it was winter, we took the frozen clothes in like sheets of plywood, let them warm up, and drip dry in the kitchen. All of this makes me appreciate my automatic machines, very much.
Kind of like this one


I have my favorite clothes, which I am ashamed to say, I give preferential treatment to. I would like to think I am without without respect of clothing, so to speak. But, alas, I am not. The table cloth from France, much higher on the totem pole then the napkins from Target.

I realize, as I sort the laundry, I am also sorting my brain. I am preparing for another week of life, and this sorting process helps me to make some of the small, large and in-between decisions about what I will do, will-not do, and what will be put off until another time. Most often though, I find myself in a race to finish all of the work before me, as fast as I can, in unrealistic time slots. This is so I may move onto the carrots I crave to work on:

1. Watercolor Painting
2. Quilting
3. READING, my favorite!
4. Sewing for fun
5. Writing

SO, as it is Monday, and the washer is beeping, I had best go, change the loads over, and move on to the next impossible task of the day.

*This sounds weird, even to me.