Just Write {102}

The dryer stopped making heat a couple of days ago, while my sister and aunt are here for a visit. I set it aside, in my head, on the Later shelf. Now I’m sitting in a laundromat, green and white checkered floor, for men in a row on the bench behind me, waiting. They have no phones or computers to look at and when it’s time, they get up in unison, pull the laundry baskets on wheels to the dryers and empty dryers, move to tables, fold in unison.

They don’t talk much.

A lady with short hair like mine sits up on a folding table, criss-cross applesauce, reading something on her iPhone while baby sleeps in a stroller to the whir of washing and drying.

I check my email, look up and think, make stories in my head and wonder if Auntie Kay and Sister Shelly are bored while waiting for me. This just had to be done, before the Laundry Mountain of 2013 would up and take over our house, alive and walking around, stinking.

Okay, it’s not that bad, just three overflowing baskets.

We have taken Kay and Shelly for good food and some “here is Austin” driving around but mostly they’ve simply been here, seeing what it’s currently like to be us, spending time with the kids. Auntie Kay took Miles and Asher for a walk yesterday morning and they met at friendly donkey named Scratchy. I think Auntie Kay liked this experience as much as the boys. I’ll give it to her, saying “donkey named Scratchy” is totally funny.

Shelly texted a Good Morning picture of Elsie to Bapa, our Dad, in Minnesota the other morning. He wrote back “Makes my heart hurt   send more”

He doesn’t often punctuate, which is how I like it.

I cried because we miss Nanny and Bapa a lot and how can you not cry after a text like that?

The ceiling fans in here go at full speed, blasting air across my face down to my feet, where my heart lands so much of the time.

The four men in a row have left, speaking Spanish on their way out the door, each carrying one duffel bag of laundry. Every time I hear the language, I wish I had devoted myself more to learning Spanish. I only know a little and want to be able to say more than a few sentences. I wanted to tell them, Isn’t this great how fast you can do laundry all at once like this? Don’t you wish it didn’t cost a penny? Let alone five quarters? in Spanish. We were in this together, feeling the whirring of the fans and watching the tumble, mesmerized.

If only everyone I love could be with me all the time, so we could feel and see the same things. But I suppose it makes sense that we can’t live that way, all in the same place, spinning and tumbling over each other in the heat.

I’m alone in this place now, still and quiet and this is just right for now.

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This is the 102nd installment of Just Write, an exercise in free writing your ordinary and extraordinary moments. {Please see the details here.} I would love to read your freely written words so join me and link up below. You can add the url of your post at any time. Just be sure it’s a link to your Just Write post, not to your main page, and please don’t link to posts that are not freely written in the spirit of capturing moments–you know, don’t link to how-to posts, lists or sponsored posts. Also, please link back to this post in yours so people know where to go if they’d like to join in.

Please take a moment to visit someone else who has linked up! It’s a really good way to meet new writers and get inspired by the meaning behind their moments. Word? Thank you!