So I've been a bit blocked and doing some excavation. In digging through my past writings, I found a series of exercises I did during one particularly brutal bout of writer's block.
One exercise in particular caught my attention.
I thought it rather good, if I may say so.
Even though it is years old, it speaks to my current belief that part of my mission in life is to inspire people to be better. Not to do more, to be better. Not to have more, but to be better. Inside. I firmly believe the road to that goal is paved in moments. Everyday, mundane, ain't-no-big-thing moments.
So I'm sharing one with you that I think is pretty relatable.
Prompt: Write 400-500 words about a less
than remarkable aspect of your life.
Laundry.
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It’s heavy. The basket, I
mean. I look down the murky stairwell of my ivory tower and sigh at the thought
of descending, step by burdened step, out into the irksome damp. I wish for the
grace of those straight backed African women who can fluidly tip a basket to
the top of their head and stride boldly with swinging arms. I am not so
graceful. So, I schlump down the steps, listing like a drunken sailor, and fall
out the front door. Juggling basket, soap and big hips, I cross the street. Moving
as if shackled, I trudge up the ramp into the Laundromat and collapse in a heap
of weariness and my son’s BVD’s.
Breathe. Just get it done.
Fetch a big, wheely basket
and transfer the tangled mess of jeans and hoodies/ Load the machines: light,
dark, colors, three in a row. Add soap and quarters, and breathe.
In the bottom of the
basket is a book. Excellent. Sit on beach blue molded plastic and transport to
somewhere else. Outstanding.
The damned buzzer rings.
Stupid, shrill call back to here. Drag up and back to the wheely basket to
dredge the soggy lump down and skate over to the cavernous dryer. Brush off the
sudden urge to climb in there in the hopes that it’s actually a teleportation
device, cleverly disguised. Load damp clothes in, insert quarters, go! Breathe.
Back to the awkward chair
and the book. Gone. No smell of bleach remains. No rumble of machinery, no
coughing old man can penetrate the force field of gorgeous prose that enters
through my eyes and insulates me utterly. Longer, this time, the respite before
the cranking whine of the slowing dryer calls me back. Look lingeringly at the
page and, sighing, arise to unwanted duty.
Open the door. Roll away
the stone. Suddenly I’m fogged over in the enveloping scent of clean and warm.
Breathe in. It’s good. Move the suddenly unburdensome burden to the chest high
table and begin to make order of the chaos. Jumbled pile of color becomes pristine stripes
of folded precision. This isn’t so bad. Suddenly, there are only skyscrapers of
warm, perfect clothes.
Carefully place each
square in the basket. Breathe. Lift the weighty, clean smelling basket onto one
big hip and stride back across the street, soap swinging from the free arm.
Smile.
Perhaps grace in motion is
a state of mind after all. Ascend lightly the stairs from dark into light and
place careful rectangles at the foot of each bed. Wonderful emptiness in the
basket, except for the battered book.
Excellent.
Breathe.
"Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water." ~Zen Proverb
Namaste,
Shanna
