Dirty Laundry

There were a few moments in life that I felt like time had stopped. Some of them belonged to my evenings in Guadalajara, Mexico during my Fulbright ETA in 2017–2018. Inspired by my host mothers in Mexico, I found myself returning to my love for hand washing laundry. Particularly, while handwashing laundry, frantic thoughts slowed to a plodding tempo and worldly demands quelled. When machines do the job, we are devoid of the process- both physical and emotional labor. Labor is fundamentally what makes us humans (also poignantly discussed in Arendt’s the Human Condition, which I highly recommend). It is an act of resistance: in a technological evolving world dependent on machines, there are things we can do without.

As a child in Vietnam, I liked accompanying older women like my grandmother as they washed their clothes. There was an art to it, after getting water from the well, their bodies stooped to a steady squat, shoulders hunched and straightened consecutively as they tugged and pulled the fabrics. This responsibility passed onto my sister and I at the age of 6 and 5. One specific memory stood one. To wash the clothes in the most efficient way, we devised a plan. Rather than using our tiny hands, we rolled up our pants, and stomped our feet on the clothes. Crickets chirped as we ran in circles around the plastic pan, as joyful as our childhood permitted us to be, pre-America.

Returning home to America, I noticed that mother has been hand washing laundry. These days, our bathroom is often decorated with clothes hanging on hangers. It is a mixture of habit and her attempt to reduce our electricity bill — a tactic also used by my host mothers in Mexico. Laundry by hands is economical, ecological, and effervescent. Without realizing it, my mother and perhaps these ladies were healing Earth. For me, I find comfort in the process of washing my own dirty laundry. It is an affirmation of my womanhood and an organic opportunity for reflection.