Memories in the wash

Rainbow ‘Round & ‘Round

We’re in our new place a little over a month now, and just about everything is turning out really well. The plumbing, however, needed some attention. And the washer which we ran on the cleaning cycle three times just kept getting chucks of black stuff. With two houses I had done the last loads at the old place while I sorted stuff for the move and clean out. So once we had settlement, for a week or two last month I was without laundry capability, and between ours and Mother’s I had a lot of laundry to take care of and off I went to the laundromat. While there I wrote the following which I’m happy to finally share with you.

8/26/24 So here I sit at Orange Blossom Laundromat at 19th and Roth. After decades of driving by here going back and forth to the theater for shows, meetings, and working at the movies I finally land here needing clean clothes. I ran three regular size loads and one jumbo load, and now the combined piles of wet things are in two jumbo dryers. The machines are almost all window and I’m watching all of these familiar things tumbling around and around. I’d forgotten how mesmerizing it can be to watch clothes in a dryer. There are Mother’s summer oranges and pinks among all our darks. Below that are the lights and the load of colors. It’s in the colors I’m seeing something flash by with sweet memories. It’s a bright rainbow bandana the belonged to Don Horton. The clothes seem to be leaping over one another and that rainbow disappears and I watch until it pops up again.

The bandana turned up while I was climbing through the huge amount of stuff that had collected in the garage. For a long time it had lived in my car stuff, traveling all over the place. It was one of those reminder things, and a “Don Horton Parking JuJu Talisman.” I swear, when we were driving Don around we would get the best parking spaces. When Don died his many signature bandanas were shared out among his closest folk. I chose the rainbow.

Just like pain, with grief there is also a joy that can spring up, unbidden, regardless of how much time goes by. And just this moment I realized that yesterday marked exactly 25 years since Don died.

It comes as such a surprise that so much time has passed. Don’s final year and walking with him on his final journey and death were a defining part of how I became a Death Doula, Educator, and Companion in transition

As I went through all of that collected stuff I had chosen to let go of that rainbow bandana. Yet somehow it’s followed me here, into my next chapter and the laundry leaping in the commercial dryer I would not be using and seeing without this huge life change.

I’m so grateful for the little joys that come up along with bittersweet memories.