WIT TEA

This Unfolded Pile of Laundry from Last Tuesday is Your Practice in Letting Go

By MELINDA COOPER AND KATE BRENNAN  |  12 APR 2023

Laundry Day

You dump the clean pile of laundry on your bed. You need not fold it now. You will fold it before bed. You deserve this.

 

1 Day Post-Laundry

You were surprised to find laundry strewn across your bed when you stumbled into the room last night. Last night you were too tired to fold the laundry. There is a lesson here.

 

2 Days Post-Laundry

When you awake the second morning, beneath the pile of laundry, you realize each piece of crumpled clothing is an opportunity to reflect on what you could have been and release your expectations for the future. The laundry is your teacher.

 

3 Days Post-Laundry

When you awake on the third day under the mound, you realize that if you wear the very clothes that suffocate you, you will no longer have to fold them and put them away. You breathe in the smell of clean laundry to fold; you breathe out the knowledge that you will never finish it all. Breathing in, you become the laundry mountain. Breathing out, you release your worldly longing for completion of neverending mundane domestic tasks. You become one with the hopelessness of every woman before you. Accept the irrefragable truth that you will never be able to accomplish your dreams or fold the pile of laundry from last Tuesday.

 

4 Days Post-Laundry

You imagine yourself surrounded by a white light that emanates from you and through you. Though physically underneath the pile of laundry, you have been transported– you are no longer of the laundry world. Unencumbered by base needs, you are a golden orb of potential, a dryer ball that keeps comforters fluffy and reduces drying time. The pile has always been here, will always be here. You are the pile of laundry. The pile of laundry is you. Everything is connected.

 

5 Days Post-Laundry

You are no longer mother, wife, daughter, sister. You are detached from yourself and detached from the pile of laundry. You have transcended the dryer sheet veil to the sky. Now, above the snow-capped peaks of stained onesies that will never look clean, above the serrated mountains of wrinkled shirts that will have to be tossed in the dryer again, above the avalanche of unmatched and unmatchable socks, above it all, you have escaped the spin cycle of womanhood. Free from the constraints of the cloth, you float, glistening and naked. The laundry no longer has power over you. You are wrinkled, unfolding, free.

Melinda is a proud member of the Shakespeare in Prisons Network and co-producer of the International Shakespeare in Prisons Conference. She is Program Director of Words Alive, a nonprofit organization promoting literacy in San Diego, California, where she helps connect kids and families to the power of reading. Melinda has written several plays and trained as an actor at The University of Virginia. She is a mother, an abolitionist, and a poet who believes in the power of words to bring people and communities together.

Kate Brennan has created 5 musicals including The Infinity Trilogy, recipient of a 2021 MAP Grant. Her first book, elevated thoughts, was released with Literati Press and her Brennan & White musical ALiEN8 is available with YouthPlays. Her play What’s in Store is a semi-finalist for The O’Neill. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney’s(“21 best of ’21”), Dramatist, Howlround, and The New York Times. She is a member of The Dramatist Guild, AEA and VASTA. Kate holds an MFA from The University of Virginia and is Artistic Director of Ignition Arts.

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