Dear Blog Reader,
I hope this letter finds you full of hope, as I am, one week
after Roger’s post about cleanliness, consideration for others, and how your
mother can really get into your head. It’s me, The Lovely Miss Beverly with a
guest follow up blog.
I woke up this MLK Day, early, ready to head to Monday
Morning Book Club, and with a full slate of vacation day activities lined up
after that. I walked into the laundry room to pull a pair of pants out of the
clean basket, and was stopped short. Flabbergasted. The laundry was folded and
in neat piles. Not just any neat piles either, but piles sorted by person and
type of garment—down to the dress socks not comingling with the athletic socks
(mental note: maybe a good activity for this day celebrating unity would be to just designate one big sock
drawer.) In other words, the laundry had been done exactly like I would have
done it, except that on Sunday, I had been knitting and watching football on
the couch for 7 quarters. My 8th quarter response to the Patriots
trouncing of the Colts was to hunker down under an afghan and fall asleep. So I
was sure that it wasn’t a short term memory thing, and I hadn’t forgotten that
I had actually done the laundry the day before, because THAT is what it looked
like.
It was like some
extremely considerate person had studied how I sort and fold at the same time
and did it to my exact specifications. It
was like the voice of my 30 year old self whining and cajoling about the proper
processing of laundry had been shouted into a long arc that finally fell back
to earth and reached my 50 year old husband’s ears. My long term memory, unlike
my short term, holds a pretty clear picture of that 30 year old self. The Young
Lovely Miss Beverly is beginning to learn how to juggle life on a farm, a
teaching career, and a family. She wants a lot out of life, including a husband
who might want to get on board with an efficient way of keeping clothes clean
and unwrinkled. Among many other things.
My image of that younger me comes into focus through a [RS1] gently
lit lens. I would just like to reach back through time, pat her on the head and
say, “you want so many things . . . maybe you should slim down the list . . . “
I see that she has not yet humbled
herself to go see a therapist alone and with her husband and sort through the “many
other things” that she does and, as it turns out, does not want. One of these
things, along the way, was a husband who did everything just like she did. Somewhere
in those decades she was guided by many an agent of the Holy Spirit to see that
Roger’s love for her wasn’t about bending him to her will.
My friend Cyndy has a great metaphor for seeing a therapist
also involving laundry. She says that you go to see a therapist because you are
just a traveler, heading through say, an airport, trying to get to the plane,
and your clothes are bulging out the sides of your suitcase, causing it to pop
open and spill out everywhere. The therapist bends down with you in the middle
of the chaos, helps you to take everything out, refold it, and hopefully repack
it in such a way that you get to the gate without incident. I would add to the metaphor
that the therapist (or pastor, or trusted wise friend) helps you see those
around you as fellow travelers, with their own luggage dangerously close to
popping open, or with at least one bra strap sticking out. For Roger and me, I
would add that we have learned when to say, “let me carry that for you,” and “why
are you putting that back in your bag? It is heavy, and it still doesn’t fit.”
The hope that I expressed at the beginning of the post
emerged from the revelation of this transformation over time. It was the
miracle of the perfectly folded laundry at 6:30 on a Monday morning, except it
wasn’t about the laundry. I stood mute, with only Henry and Hugo looking on, reverently
wagging their tails. I thought, this is the hard fought miracle of refusing to
say, “They will never change”.
I went to the bedroom hoping Roger was awake, but he wasn’t.
“Roger.” I whispered.
No response.
“Roger!” I couldn’t leave the house without saying something.
“mmmm. What?”
“You folded the clothes just like me!” I whisper shouted.
Mumbling sleep sounds followed by silence.
“Should I explain later?”
“mmmm. I’m sleeping.”
For now, I would have to ponder the mystery on my own. My
own crazy luggage-repacking transformation would intersect with his later in
the day.
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