Lessons from Laundry

Doing the wash seems so-o-o-o ordinary. Yet there are things I've learned about life from laundry. Here's a short list.


1) Know your colors.

"Wash with like colors" means some people will understand you, and some won't. Those people who really get you can see your deep-down colors. This has nothing to do with your surface coloring, by the way.    

A true friend can be washed with another. When you throw kindred spirits into the rough-and-tumble world, they keep each other bright, with no bleeding or fading.


2) Be patient with the world.

Socks are going to get separated, no matter what. When I find a lone sock, it goes into the Counseling Basket above the washing machine. The other sock needs time. Sometimes it comes back; sometimes it doesn't. Either way, socks can learn to be happy.  

3) Go low-tech.

 "Line dry," is the instruction. Yet most of us throw everything into the dryer, because it's fast and available. Going back to simplicity actually saves time because it preserves the things you care about. By contrast, when you're always tumbling around in the dryer, you are prone to shrinkage.  

4) Give your personal life extra attention.

"Gentle wash. Tumble dry low."

Things such as underwear are fragile. It's tempting to wash the heck out of them. But the garments hardly anyone sees are probably the most important. This is exactly opposite of how society thinks: the focus is on the outside, the visible, the flashy. Are you gently taking care of your personal life? Are you giving it the attention it needs?

So here's a guide to laundry instructions. While you're at it, what life secrets is your own wash telling you?

Write them down.

Ode to the Phone Booth

Photo by Roland Smith

So the other day I was in Morton, Washington, heading into a convenience store for a bag of ice. On the sidewalk I passed a phone booth. The phone rang. Really. Of course I picked it up. "'Ello . . . "

Who was on the line? What boon did they ask of me? How was this accomplished? 

A story prompt, if you like. Or, approach it with a poem, as I did.

Ode to the Phone Booth

Vestibules of transformation!
Impossible closets of superheroes!
Glass cathedrals of good-bye conversations,
bottomless quarter depositories,
tattered Yellow Pages!
O for the last of the phone booths,
O for immobile conversation
Alas for the days when one could
stand still, and listen.

Special thanks to Roland K. Smith for generously letting me use his photo. 

The Dragon: A Tiny Story

Concerning Dragons

by 

Brian McFarland

The fortune teller said I would find a mythical creature, and hear a great secret.

Here was the creature. I held it up on the tips of my fingers.

"Dragons are real," said the voice. 

There was a pause as I waited for the rest of it, then realized that was the rest of it. Apparently, the smoky little lizard's great secret was that it did, in fact, exist.

"What, that's it?" I said, a little annoyed.

"What do you mean, 'that's it?' I'm a flying, talking, firebreathing dragon! The stuff of legends, rising up from the age of mysticism!"

"You're the size of my thumb, and I have yet to see you fly or breath fire," I said.

With a huff, the tiny reptile leapt off of my hand and onto the table. "Well," it said, "you certainly could have done worse. Before, you were minus one dragon and, by extension, one connection to a world filled with magic and wonder. Besides, it's not like I'm a fairy. Regular pests, those are."

"Magic and wonder, nothing," I said. "If the rest of your 'magical world' is proportioned like you, what good is it?"

"What good...?" the little beast said, confounded.

"Yes, what good! Unless you can be converted into a hot water heater, or know a spell that'll find my keys when I lose them, what good are you?"

"But...but..."

"You're not even good for decoration. I can just see how it'd go if I told people I had a dragon. Oh really, let's see it then, they'd say. Right, here it is, I'd say. Wow, that's awfully small for a dragon, does it do anything, they'd say. Not really, I'd say. UNIMPRESSED, they'd say. So you tell me, if you're no good for dragon stuff and you're no good for anything else, what good are you?"

After I'd finished my rant I looked down, but instead of seeing a slightly mutated reptile there were only some scorch marks on my table.

Goodbye forever, they read.


Does the dragon story resonate with you? What would you do if you found this creature?

Never Show a Work in Progress

Being a literary artist is so hard . . .

 

Amos Lee on Taking Time

I love it when artists remind me not to be in such a hurry. Amos Lee, one of my favorite singer-songwriters, has some great things to say about the creative process.