Dirty Laundry

Today I did something that I have never done before---amidst a day of setting next year's district budget; amidst a staff meeting; amidst lunch with one of my pastors, I knew something was coming, something big...I took my laundry to the Westport Laundromat and am paying to have it done for the first time in my life. In the house in which I now live (the first floor--four bedrooms, old, a bit beat-up and wonderful), there is one washer and dryer in the basement, but the basement gives me the hee-bee-gee-bees---I always expect Larry from Prairie Home Companion to creep up on me laugh diabolically. I have been taking my laundry and doing it at above said laundromat (it isn't just any laudromat--it won the "Kansas City Best Laundromat Award" in 1998---there is a plaque and everything!)...but it takes mucho time, and tres mucho energy, and in the middle of charge conference season, I have given in. Besides, sister d.s. Sue Watson, when I told her that I wasn't sure about letting someone else not only see but do my dirty laundry, said to me last week, and I quote "got over it, Susan." Thus strengthened, I took three heavy basket loads today--it is not going to be cheap, but I felt a lightness about my spirit that could not be denied.
Today as I contemplated taking my laundry to be done, I thought about my own mother's legacy with laundry. Until I was in high school, she did laundry every Monday, using a ringer washer (something like the one above...but I do not remember smiling, at all and the use of "fun" and "washday" in the same sentence is obscenely cruel.) She would sort the laundry on Sunday night, sitting in the middle of our large bathroom, throwing it in piles. When the weather was nice enough, she'd hang the laundry out on the clothes line, and the aroma was a delight. However, I distinctly remember, even through a nostalgic haze, that doing the laundry was not exactly my mother's favorite thing...it ranked right down there with dusting and mopping the floors. She would have much rather been sewing, working with her two 4-H clubs, sewing, fixing Sunday dinner, sewing, reading a magazine, sewing, playing the piano (by ear), sewing. Although I kidded with the girl at the laundromat the I hoped my mother wasn't turning in her grave at the thought of me paying someone else to have my laundry done, I really don't think she is. She would want me to have time to sew (okay, do counted cross stitch), and work with my emergent folks (not exactly an equivalent to 4-H, but hey, I'm waxing metaphorical here); bake for my children, the cabinet, and anyone else who I can find to eat it; read, listen to music, and do more counted cross stitch, and maybe even blog in the time I do have that is not d.s.-driven.
And the morals of the story are: Listen to d.s. sisters; know that it is okay to give over things you are not too proud of to others who can help you clean them up; sometimes you have to admit that you cannot do it all; remember your mother; and sew.