The traces we leave behind

Sometimes the memory of a good week doesn't show up until laundry day

A few nights ago, I did something that I’m relatively good at by now.

I looked at the laundry basket, sighed like it had personally betrayed me, like all this happend by accident, and thought… I will deal with all this tomorrow.

That’s the way laundry is.
It certainly has a bad reputation.

It has somehow managed to become a symbol for everything repetitive, it’s never finished. You fold it, put it away, and blink twice, aaaand someone had the audacity to wear a shirt, now it’s back in this same old basket.

It’s not a really helpful mindset either because laundry does not create itself. Even though we might be convinced otherwise.

Every single shirt in that basked had a day first. And I never really gave laundry the benefit of a doubt, as weird as it is to say that.

A shirt is just a shirt, it doesn’t just wake up o9ne morning and decide to go for a stroll and get dirty for the pure fun of it. It gets worn because somebody went somewhere. Socks end up in the wash because they spend a few days carrying you around town.

A towel only needs drying because somebody got to stand under warm water for ten minutes and pretend they were in a karaoke bar. And that they weren’t running late.

These laundry piles don’t just appear out of nowhere, and I know that is sometimes a tough truth to hold onto. Laundry piles accumulate one very normal day at a time.

I was folding clothes last weekend and there was a sweatshirt I wore on a walk after dinner because the air had cooled enough to need another layer. Which is a crazy thing to say mid July.

The point is, I had already completely forgotten about the walk. But here was the memory in my hands.

As I was about to throw more laundry in the machine, I saw my long sleeve shirt with a flour “stain” on the sleeve.

Riiight. Pancakes. Not so good pancakes either. I got distracted halfway through and somehow managed to burn one side while the other was probably not even close to done.

It was one of those meals you just kind of shrug and eat it anyway because you don’t want to be wasteful. And you’re starving.

But this tiny patch of flour reminded be about the pancakes before I remembered it myself. Funny how that is.

Oh yeah, there is also a receipt in a jacket pocket.

I unfolded it, looked at the date, and for a second couldn’t place it. Ahh, it was the coffee shop. And the whole afternoon came back. I had stopped for coffee after running an errand that should have taken twenty minutes but somehow turned into two hours.

That’s what you get when you’re fascinated by everything and constantly stop to ponder. I sat outside longer than I had originally planned because the weather felt too nice to waste.

I had already forgotten this little afternoon.
But the receipt hadn’t.

Makes you think how much of your week gets tucked into things like these.

Receipts, stains, a little grass on the bottom of a shoe. A movie ticket still hiding in a pocket of your favorite coat.

Or for pet owners, those pet hairs, I have a dog and those dog hairs seem to survive anything and everything. They go against all odds and always come ahead.

The tiny scratch on a mug because you set it down too hard while laughing at your friend trying to pronounce something completely wrong.

These are the things you don’t notice while they’re happening.
You’re way too busy living your life. Living the day.

Only after few days do they start to turn up again.
Maybe that’s why chores feel annoying sometimes.

We tend to think of them as the “annoyances” of life. Like they’re something separate from living.

Chores feel like the price you have to pay before you get back to the interesting parts of living.

And I do it all the time too.

I’ll sit outside right AFTER folding laundry.
I’ll read AFTER I clean the kitchen.
I’ll call my friend AFTER I answer Pete from accounting.

It’s like you start treating life like it’s waiting on the other side of all the checklists and to do lists, always trying to hurry to the next thing.

Then I pick up my jeans with some mud on them.
That mud is from life. From living.

The dishes sitting on the counter are from dinner. A good one at that.

The laundry is from yesterday’s walk where we couldn’t catch a breath because we were laughing too hard.

There are grocery bags because someone was nice enough to get groceries so we can cook.

And towels are there because somebody swam, or showered, or got caught in the rain. It doesn’t matter.

Evidence for things that happened in your life tend to show up later. It’s not instant feedback.

Maybe that’s the part that tricks us because the joyful part happens first. The fun, the carefree-ness. The maintenance, the chores, they come after. And by then we often have already forgotten what exactly created it.

I mean nobody looks at a sink full of dishes and immediately pictures the conversation and laughs that happened during dinner.

We just see the mountain of dishes waiting for us. Ugh.

Nobody ever looks at a laundry basket either and thinks about the walk that ended with everyone sitting on the front steps because nobody felt like going inside just yet.

You just see a pile of laundry. Ugh.

Our traces tend to stay, but the moments move on.

Now I could say that’s probably why I have a hard time throwing some pieces of clothes away. Or donate them. I think we all have these pieces laying around in our closet. The hoodie you’ve owned for years. Or the t-shirt that’s so soft and you have no idea how, but you haven’t been able to find anything like it to replace it. And then there is that one jacket that only works when you ask nicely.

It’s easy to say we hold on to these things because of comfort.
But I think it’s more than that.

Those pieces of clothing have been there throughout your life, sometimes for a surprisingly long time.

Road trips and cold mornings. Quick little trips to the grocery store because you forgot to buy milk again, but then you ran into your old friend you haven’t seen in ages. Or that soft t-shirt you wore while watching a thunderstorm on your porch after taking the trash out.

None of these things were trying to become some special memories that you’d hold onto for years. They were just normal days doing what normal days do.

The clothes just happened to be there.
As they usually are.

As humans I think we tend to underestimate how much of life is built from things that don’t feel important enough to be noticed.

Like that day where nothing special happened except that everyone made it home. It doesn’t sound like much but those are the good days. Or the walk you almost sipped because you were tired, been there also. Or the cup of tea you drank standing at the kitchen window.

The shirt you threw into the laundry basket without a second thought because tomorrow would probably look exactly like every other day. Normal.

Then a week goes by.

And you’re standing in front of the washing machine, reaching into yet another pocket.

Maybe you find a receipt. Or a tiny little pebble. Or even a tiny feather.

It makes you stop for a second. And then that day rushes back. And the memories. How you felt on the beach with your loved ones.

You smile.

And off you go, tossing the clothes into the wash. Once again. Because another week is already beginning and it’s already leaving little traces of it’s own.

Me looking at a red pasta sauce stain on my shirt.

I really do need an apron.