Laundry

Laundry.  It piles up around us sometimes.  Boys drop it on the floor instead of the bag ... "Put it in the bag, please, hun .." said over ten times in a morning ... till I'm weary of my own voice and weary of the piles of unfinished mothering and attempts to pour in all that is needed for a life in short eighteen years ...

And some days we just leave it all where it is and go walking.  We pack our paints, hit the bike path, don't look back and sit by the lake and laugh and create and drink in views of egrets and ducks and people walking dogs ... those "laundry can wait days" give life the pace a savoring heart needs. 

And, then when someone just pops by, we have to put the laundry away so it isn't sitting out for every one to look at.  Just like so much of life stashed away from critical eyes who may see the unfinished, unwashed, unkempt parts of me and fear that you won't find me as tidy as you'd like.  But, there are always those friends who come in and do the laundry with you.  Those are the keepers.

And there's the laundry sorting where you think about each boy and his jeans torn in wild abandon on a grassy hill or a bicycle stunt and his carefree love of living out loud with his neighbor friends.  And you stand and fold and smile about those boys who just can't turn a sock right-side-out to save their lives, but they sure turn me right side out most days just by filling this house with all the life it can handle.

And when all the laundry is folded and stashed away and I have things lined up as I like and the boys are tucked in and the night light in the hall is on, if it's been one of those days, I can thank God for new mercies.  But if it's been the other kind, those memory making, heart quaking, eat-em-up days, then I can sigh and pull up my covers and just thank God for all of it -- the dirt, the wash and the folding.  

Stop.