A non-extraneous Day

Now I normally loathe laundry.  I inherited the dislike from my mother, although she had more right to hate the task than I do.  She was doing laundry for 14! (except for the years Grandma lived with us and took on or tamed the dirty laundry beast in our household.)  But, yesterday evening, as I was putting the last load in the dryer and eyeing the neatly folded stacks of play clothes on my bed, I had a strangely satisfied feeling.  It wasn't the head rush from all the bending over into the front loader or the pleasant wafting smell of the bounce dryer sheets.. no. I distinctly felt a solid, 'we should have more evenings like this' feeling.  What was it about our evening that was different?  Nothing.  I mean it wasn't any THING but rather the absence of extra things to do.  Last night there was no rushing to appointments or rehearsals or interviews or ball games. Blake had finished his ball game before supper, Ainsley had stayed home and prepared supper for us before we got there, Weston set the table, and Carlos came home just in time.  After dinner the little boys practiced their instruments, the teenagers did homework, I cleaned the kitchen with Ainsley's help and attacked the Kilamanjaro of laundry. Carlos after a grueling day of work, actually sat down and leafed through a magazine.  It was a very Norman Rockwall evening.  Now I'm not saying it was picture perfect.  There was the time I lost my temper, followed by apology, followed by frank forgiveness;  there was some teenage moodiness in the mix;  there was some misrepresentation by one who won't be named in an effort to avoid practicing; there was some creative procrastination by another of getting to work on his homework.  But, we worked that all out too.  It was a night of basics -- each of us pulling his or her load, (laundry or otherwise) and fulfilling our duties: tackling the mundane 'shoulds' that we're sometimes lucky to get to in the cracks and crevices of our normally busier evenings peppered with the extra-curricular...and it felt good.

If I could just have faith that I'll feel that good about doing laundry every day, maybe I'll stop letting it accrue on what my husband calls the most expensive laundry basket he ever bought (that is the white velvet couch in our master.)  It helps to read a poem my mother wrote.  She likewise had an epiphany about the home-y duties we all like to put off, and how by facing them we are actually taking steps down the road to our divine inheritance.  Wise woman.


An Unfinished Woman by Jaroldeen Edwards

Here am I, Lord,
The dishes barely done and night long since fallen,
The children would not go to bed
And would not go and
Would not go --
And now they are gone.
Gone to places of their own with children of their own
Who will not got to bed and will not go...
And I have taught them what I could and
They have learned the things they would
And now they've gone their way alone to learn the rest
Most on their own.

And I remain, not half spent.
And I remain, not yet content,
So much to do, so much to learn,
So much to feel, so much to yearn.
My past mistakes make stepping-stones,
Not millstones great around my neck but
Stones to guide my searching feet --
And I must search; I'm incomplete.

I watch my years go tumbling by
And I must use them better, I
Have yet so much to learn and do
Before I can return to You.

The hour is late.  The night comes on,
My celestial self I would become.
Ah!  What wisdom thou gavest to mortal life --

I,
As sister, mother, daughter, wife--
In earthly roles have seen Thy face.
In my womanly life Thy heavenly place
Is taught through humble tasks and pain.
So, if royal robes I would obtain,
To wear as all Thy glories burst--
I'll need to do the laundry first.