Something Good

Today, we delight in Delights

Greetings all human people! I am a feeler. An Enneagram 4. An emotionally-led being. A Meloncholy muse. A lover of things bittersweet. And, a lot of times, when I sit down to write out my thoughts and process emotions it can get a bit heavy. I assure you that I am actually quite an optimistic person but I tend to share the things that tug at me. The difficulties that life brings are the places that I am very comfortable and especially very comfortable sharing.

Photo by Dave Hoefler on Unsplash

So, I need to occasionally remind myself that I need to also spend time on the sunny side. Taking in the positive things around me is not super difficult in every day life since I am surrounded by my kids and my husband every day— and they are my favorite things on the planet. But when I am writing, I can keep it a bit morose. Guilty as charged.

Consequently, today we are going to talk about Delights. This is an idea of the Gardener, Author, Poet and Activist Ross Gay. He has 2 essay Collections all about Delights. The Book of Delights and also the second installment The Book of (More) Delights

Ross challenged himself every day for 1 year to write in his journal about something that delighted him that day. An interaction, an idea, a flower: it could be anything. Small or large, it doesn’t matter. I loved reading through his first collection. He is a gardener and you can tell in his beautiful analogies of the trees and bugs and plants. He is also a deep obervationist. I highly recommend checking his work out.

So, in the interest of picking a Delight and focusing on that today, I am going to write about Laundromats. If any of my 5 siblings are reading this they will know exactly what I mean…ha!

Photo by Jeremy Sallee on Unsplash

When I was a kid growing up in Broomfield, CO in a small 3 bedroom one-bathroom house with an unfinished basement, we had various hand-me-down washers and dryers through the years. I lived in this house from about the age of 3 in 1987 till the age of 18 when I left for college in 2002. With 8 people you can imagine it was quite a bad thing if the washer or dryer didn’t work. It seemed like it happened a lot but it may have only been a few times. It happened for long chunks at a time when I was small and we would load up the car and head to the Laundromat with our overflowing baskets of clothes and socks. So many socks. My mom would bring quarters and we would take turns putting the quarters into the small slots on the machines to start each load. This particular laundromat was located in a strip mall on the other side of town from where we lived. It felt like a long way when I was little but now I know it’s not actually that far. Childhood perspective is quite skewed, isn’t it?

My sisters, brother and I used to love to use the extra quarters to grab a Dr Pepper from the soda vending machine. I now hate Dr Pepper but as a kid I loved it! I remember the exact smell when you walked in the door. A combination of soap, cheap plastic and mothballs. I remember the way the chairs dipped a little in the center. I loved sitting on them, it felt super fancy to me. We used to play just outside on the concrete sidewalks. We would do cartwheels and hand stands and play racing games in the small parking area just outside the windows. I remember sitting there for many many hours with my mom. She would bring a book and read and we would help her take the loads out of the washer and put them in the rolling baskets. The ones with the bars that rose from each side and ran along the top. We would FOR SURE play with those a ton. Taking turns sitting inside the basket while the others pushed you all around the tile floors. If it was empty we would shove each other hard toward the back door… I would probably not let my kids do this today. Ha!

I think I tried a Mountain Dew there and it felt so cool. There was a small bathroom in the back corner and I loved using it cause I could go inside and close the door and be by myself and look in the mirror. It felt so cool and grown up.

On one trip my brother slammed my right thumb in the car door as we were leaving. We were fighting over who would get to sit in the front middle seat in our tan sedan we had for awhile. I was the automatic kid who got to sit up front between my parents since I was the perfect size at the time to fit the easiest. Occasionally my brother also got to sit up there as he was 2 years older than me and only slightly larger. We were racing out there to claim our seats and I slid my thumb in to try and hold open the door and WHAM! the door got slammed on my little innocent 6 year old thumb. I remember it hurt, I remember my dad was there and he carried me into the laundromat bathroom to wash my hands and get me cleaned up. My brother got in trouble and I got the front seat. :)

Even with that memory of getting hurt, I still only think of The Laudromat with fondness. I loved it. I loved the sunshine coming in and the smell and the small tasks that felt exciting because we were in a different place. I loved playing with my siblings there. I loved the bubbles from the cold canned soda. I know now how it must have been so annoying for my mom to have to take 5 or 6 kids with loads and loads of laundry only to load us all back up again to go home and put it all away. But it sure delighted me.

I have a love of Laundromats now. Matt and I went to one in Paris in 2009 and we washed our travel clothes and watched a little French Toddler practice counting with him mom using the numbers on the sides of the machines. (Dix-sept, Dix-Huit, Dix-neuf, VINGT!) It was so adorable and warmed my heart so much. We use Laundromats occasionally when we travel. I washed a bunch of clothes in 2022 in Queen, NY at a Laundromat that only took cash. I had to walk a mile to find a gas station to get some cash so I could do it. There were soooo many people in that one. Each with their own story. Each person taking care of their own personal and family needs. It delights my little heart so much. I love watching people care for themselves and each other. I loved listening to them chat in multiple languages and talk to other people there to do their laundry. There is something about doing a task like that alongside someone else that feels so connecting. I picture women throughout the thousands of years of existence sitting together and banging out stains on rocks and using homemade soap to clean the linens.

It’s a Delight that I carry in my pocket all the time when I travel. I always look on Laundromats with a warmth that makes my heart squeeze.

Here is a link to a Podcast where Ross Gay is interviewed by Glennon Doyle, Abby Wambach and Amanda Doyle. It’s Delightful.

A Quote from The Book Of Delights: “The more stuff you love the happier you will be.”
― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights: Essays