Getting into the Spirit of Things

Washing clothes might not seem like a spiritual experience. I never thought of it as such either, until I had what can be described as an epiphany one day.

My husband and I had altered the course of our lives quite drastically in 1981 by selling most of our household goods, a three-bedroom, ranch-style house in the San Francisco Bay Area, and moving into an 8X40 25-year old trailer in Northern California. Our challenges included no running water, no electricity, a propane cooking stove with an oven that didn’t work, and a wood burning stove for heat. We had a thunder bucket for night use and a shovel with a roll of toilet paper on it for the daytime. Our son, in his red wagon, hauled seven gallons of spring water up a steep incline every morning. That's how he got his name, "Running Water".

We had wanted to get out of the rat race of city living. We’d hoped to experience our lives closer to Mother Earth and learn to integrate the philosophies of Native American culture and spirituality. I hadn’t realized what we’d done to ourselves until I approached the washing.

Steven had tugged an extra allotment of water up the hill. My husband had bought me a scrub board and two wash tubs. I’d purchased Fels Naphtha soap and a finger nail scrub brush.

Sitting on a milk crate after boiling half the water, I started to rub and slosh the white clothes across the glass ripples of the scrub board. My back screamed after a half hour. My arm muscles whimpered. I started to sob, “What have we done to ourselves? What have I done to me? My career? My independence?”

Self-pity turned to rage. My hands wrung the wash water out of the clothes with such force, they felt dry. Then I cried some more as I rinsed them.

Midway through the all day process, I poured the filthy wash water onto struggling tomato plants. The rinse water then became the wash water. Mentally thanking Steven for the extra haul, I squinted at the clear, crisp glints of reflected light as I poured the last gallons into the tub. It was like seeing stars in the daytime.

Resting my shoulders, I thanked the sun for keeping my muscles warm and easing their stress. Scrubbing away one stubborn T-shirt stain, I thanked the soap and the brush for helping.

A yellow finch flew so close overhead, I had to duck. Then, I opened my ears to the sounds around me and realized I was sitting in a very noisy clearing. I differentiated five kinds of birds and marveled at a vulture who swooped across the sky. The natural perfume of blossoms and needles intensified as the sun peaked in the sky.

Hanging clothes on the make-shift line that my husband had dubbed my solar dryer, I saw shirts and underwear as white as when I’d purchased them. Colored clothes were vibrant.

Instead of worrying if we were going to have the money to buy more when the kids outgrew these, I offered thanks that we had any at all. My judgment of the filthy water turned into an understanding of how much Earth we’d gathered in our clothes. I chuckled at that circular thought as I returned the last of it to the base of the zucchini plant.

That was almost 30 years ago. I don’t wash clothes by hand anymore, thank God. I still use a solar dryer in summer and give thanks for the abundance of a gas generator, electric washer, and all the clothes I hang on the line.