Airing One’s Laundry In Public
Boundaries are good. We should all have a few incontrovertible rules for how we want to live our lives that aren’t open for discussion.
Many of us learn about boundaries again in later life. A few decades of parenting and partnering can wear away lines you once ruled about the kind of sleep, or solitude, or social life you feel like you deserve.
But when you’re no longer a 24/7 parent, you can redraw borders round any freshly liberated space. Maybe you’re not going to settle for the burnt chop and broken biscuit anymore if that’s a thing you’ve been doing in your family for a while.
I like the idea of saying there is a thing you will not do and sticking to it - even when some of the reasons for setting that boundary have gone. I heard myself say recently – not even sure how it came up – that I had decided 25 years ago that I would never do another man’s washing, and I never had.
The friend I was talking to look perplexed – partner and parent of two kids, the job of doing the laundry clearly wasn’t one that caused friction at their place. “You have two separate hampers?” she asked in an incredulous voice. “How long do you have to wait to have a full load?!”
I heard myself confirming yes, two hampers, that my washing machine comes with five different water level settings, and explaining why I had arranged things this way. But it was only later that I found the real reason lurking like a lost sock down the back of the washing machine.
The easy reasons are these. I adore clothes – my dad was in the business, my mother took getting dressed seriously – and part of the joy for me is in taking care of what I have. Possibly enough care taken with separating whites and colours, blackwashing and handwashing to qualify me for a touch of OCD?
But there is pleasure in the cleansing, the making new, and the hanging out to dry in what my mother called “God’s good air”. Sometimes the sight of sunshine on my clothesline is so joyous I will take a photo.
And because appreciate I am OTT with how I do it, I want to avoid the possibility of sharing the load, then being angry with someone for not living up to my ridiculous standards. I don’t want to growl anyone for putting my silk blouse in with a load of jeans and towels. Just leave it to me. Because also, what were the jeans doing with the towels? Are you mad? These are of the wrong dye quality and textures to be sharing a space together while wet.
See what I mean?
But the deeper reason for the pronouncement about “never doing another man’s washing” comes from so long ago that there are people who won’t know that I once had relationships with men who had quite conventional ideas about what women should and should not do.
There was a partner who thought eventually (meaning quite soon) I would stop faffing about with writing and performing and get a proper job which would give me more time as homemaker, and another who felt all domestic duties were mine and mine alone.
As much as you might enjoy doing laundry, there can be these (and other complex reasons) why washing someone’s socks and undies can make you feel quite resentful.
Hence, twenty-five years of separate hampers. It works for us.