How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb, or, embracing the quiet meditation of laundry
I was a terrible housewife. I admit it freely. Domestic tasks bore me to tears, and everything about creating and sharing a home with someone seemed to be about repetitive domestic tasks. I don’t like touching dirty dishes, I don’t see the big deal about folding clothes. I’m not saying that these are the reasons I’m divorced, but I will accept some accountability for the way my neurology and psychology contributed to the slow chipping away at domestic bliss. I just don’t see mess until I really see the mess, and then I don’t know how to tackle it, and that must be really difficult for some people to live with.
In 2021 I moved in with my parents, in large part to help with domestic tasks that are getting too challenging for my mother, especially when my dad is busy with peak farming season. Life finds a way to make us wear down our rough edges.
This is not a story about how I conquered my ADHD and learned to love the bomb, er, dishes. I still have tactile aversions, dishes are gross, full stop. This isn’t a story about achieving domestic harmony either. It’s hard to live with my parents in my late-30s, it’s hard to be ill all the time, and it’s hard to see my mom sick, too. Sometimes things are hard and we don’t have to turn it into a fairy tale ending. At the end of this story someone will be in the nursing home, and that’s gonna suck, too.
This story is about laundry. The bane of care tasks, it seems. It never ends, even when you seemingly catch up. It has too many stages: wash, dry, fold, put away.
Three mindset shifts have changed how I do laundry.
Capsule wardrobe. All my clothes fit into this color aesthetic: black, grey, cool, or gay. I like it because it rhymes, but really “gay” is my handful of rainbow shirts for Pride. I can wash my laundry in something like four loads because I don’t sort by color, I sort by durability. It’s not a capsule wardrobe in size, though, so I still have too many t-shirts, but what else am I going to paint in? All my t-shirts can go in the same pile though, so they wash and dry fast, so who cares?
KonMari Method. I watched Tidying Up with Marie Kondo when I still lived in Idaho and was feeling buried by clutter. I don’t follow her rules exactly, but I love the way she folds laundry. I need my clothes to be visible and accessible, or I just end up wearing the same seven things over and over. I go through my clothes every six months or so and get rid of anything that is no longer serving me.
Quiet time. I used to watch TV while I folded laundry to make it more palatable. This is absolutely valid and I may do that again someday. Right now I enjoy the quiet and use it as part of my artistic process. I get my best ideas when I am bored and my mind is free to wander. Repetitive tasks like folding shirts is the perfect time for my mind to cook up ideas for my sketchbook, or to noodle on some little piece of emotional something that needs to get unstuck later in the studio.
It turns out, as a kid I loved helping with laundry, and sometimes we just have to go back to our roots. Don’t worry, I don’t put underwear on my head anymore.
