BipolarLawyerCook

Early on Sun­day at the laun­dry
and Sec­re­tary Clin­ton just unloaded an oh-no-she-did-not diss on Pres­i­dent Karzai.
Not that he didn’t deserve it, of course.
The cen­trifuge on the (coin-op, of course) washer in our base­ment gave out—
I warned the land­lord that the tub seemed to be leak­ing,
lovely peo­ple, but still, cheap bas­tards.
(Here I am, thirty-five, still rent­ing.
I got all my best study­ing in grad school done before noon, Sun­days, at the Found Sock in Brighton.
Today it’s the Ross­more in JP.)

Funny how you for­get things like that for a while until some­thing hap­pens to make you recall.
Sec­re­tary Gates is really well-spoken, I see.
This not hav­ing a TV thing might be over­rated now that we’ve a decent admin­is­tra­tion again.
And gosh, doesn’t George Stephanopou­los look old, although Mrs. Clin­ton looks not as aged by her job as she could.
Makes me glad to be a Seven Sis­ters grad, the first time I’ve had that thought in a while.
I do admire a plain-spoken woman.
The Sabbath-day gas­bag shows (bless Calvin Trillin for that) play on a flat panel HD dis­play
while my laun­dry churns in the dri­ers and I type on my lap­top,
and Spanish-speaking tod­dlers stomp by in over­sized, sparkling, cartoon-character snow­boots.
Dora the Explorer, Trans­form­ers and Star Wars.

First snow­fall, yes­ter­day, early Decem­ber, and the fresh snow clings to the elec­tri­cal lines,
the tops of the bus signs,
the bushes and trees as I drove home last night after clos­ing the book­store,
my usual drive home through bucolic sub­ur­bia trans­formed–
not so much win­ter won­der­land as sparkling, unplowed,
fol­low­ing a Toy­ota Camry with Mass plates who can’t drive in a half-inch of snow.
Same thing every year.

My Nordic-style hand­made cash­mere mit­tens knit by my best friend and her wife–
the ones they gave me for my help with their wed­ding
(not as much as they seemed to think, really, I was in the midst of another damned melt­down)
did an admirable job of clear­ing the snow from my wind­shield,
since of course I’d for­got­ten my brush and my scraper.
(Yes, I had known the fore­cast. I for­got the scraper, regardless.)

Now Russ Feingold’s on the TV, and I’m almost done with my fair-trade cof­fee
(in its recy­cled paper cup and corn­starch plas­tic lid, bien sur)
to go from the cof­fee shop ‘round the cor­ner and Russ is old, too.
I remem­ber when he first ran for Sen­ate.
I was writ­ing for the col­lege news­pa­per then—
I think I wrote an op-ed piece for the Col­lege Democ­rats, even,
along with the piece I wrote cov­er­ing when Clin­ton (the hus­band) cam­paigned in Boston.
My room­mate sat on my shoul­ders so she could snap a good pic­ture.
He stopped—turned—smiled—waved at her. At us.
He was like that. Is still, I sup­pose.
It’s been a while since I’ve paid much mind to pol­i­tics except my duty to vote.
It was a fab­u­lous picture—we were both so excited back then.

The laundromat’s fill­ing, peo­ple lug­ging in laun­dry in their “suit­cases of the world”—
you know the ones—those huge faux-plaid plas­tic bags with the han­dles you get at the dol­lar store.
The pot­ted ferns, spi­der plants, antique wash­boards hung on sup­port posts,
bright-painted walls and old, molded fiber­glass chairs are cacoph­o­nous col­ors.
I bought one, once, one of those big han­dle bags.
It broke, fairly quickly—I think I over­loaded it,
drag­ging it up and down stairs try­ing to do—
sur­prise, surprise—dirty laun­dry.
I’ve always sus­pected I car­ried around too much baggage.

Good lord, there’s wi-fi and the snack machines are much bet­ter than those at the Found Sock ever were—
water, dried fruit and trail mix, yogurt raisins on top of the soda and chips–
and usu­ally I wouldn’t bring the laun­dry here to do it myself–
I’d drop it off for the nice older man to do by the pound, the one who calls me sweet­heart and dear
and folds my bras and under­wear just so– what must it be like?
Han­dling other people’s dirty laun­dry for work with a smile?
It’s a beau­ti­ful smile.
He’s got more grace—capital G Grace– than I’ll ever have.
He lent me his cen­trifuge in the back when I came in this morn­ing,
to spin off the worst from my sopping-wet clothes.

Two Clin­ton terms, two Bush terms, one half of an Obama term later—
grad school and an attempt at a career and now I’m start­ing over again, sort of and yet not—
is thirty-five too early for a mid-life cri­sis if I’ve already had one or two
(fine, more than that, but if I keep too strict a count I’ll need more ther­apy than I’m already in)–
when I go home am I going to be as weath­ered and wise as Hilary and Russ and Robert and George?
Or am I going to look like a bear who’s just woken from a long hiber­na­tion,
bleary and leaves mat­ted in dirty old fur?

I awake early on Sun­day at the laun­dry—
to some­thing that’s the same and yet dif­fer­ent, big­ger and brighter,
three point five miles south­west from where adult­hood (of some kind) began,
with a hus­band who makes me laugh,
with con­tents of pantry and book­shelves and med­i­cine cab­i­net to make me feel bet­ter,
a lap­top to write poetry upon–
and Saint Ross­more bustling by every so often to say—
“You’ve got a minute left on your load, dar­lin’. You might want to check.”

Yes, sir. I might.
Thank you for the reminder.
Would you like to come home with me?
Keep watch over every­thing else?

Bet­ter not ask.
Instead, I think I’ll go home.
I’ve got more laun­dry I can bring back and hand over the counter.