“It’s not your story to tell,” I hear tonight.
But it is, warts picked and all. Because breaking up is hard to do. And the dirty linen follows as quickly as that washing machine spinning your life right now, never quite drying.
Musty, I call it. And decidedly musty when I helped Daughter
Emma packing up boxes and rolling up carpets when Boyfriend decided she’s just not… quite it. Teddy bear goes in this box, squashed feather pillow around the Big Computer Screen … and then her scribbled page I found in the linen basket – dirty as it is: “Laundry today, or naked tomorrow It’s been on my washing basket for years. A perfectly sized pink basket my mom bought me way back, when I first started exploring independence… And now it sits in my home. Our home. Or so I thought it was; so I thought… I realise now how much one could – as mom would put it – “read” into that…
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I realise now that if only I had done the laundry sooner. Here we are… both naked… alone. I hear the ‘dirt’… the laundry that hasn’t been acknowledged; that we both knew was there but neither of us bothered to do… How
I wish I’d addressed it sooner. It’s been stinking up the place for months.
And what: I didn’t expect it to pile up? It surprised me that it did? How I want to believe that. Sure, I was caught off-guard, but I realise now that’s my old friend – Denial. I told everyone in Joburg about the laundry – how it crowded our bathroom; how we no longer had towels – but I never did anything about it…
And now we’re vulnerable, and the walls are covered in mould. I wish I’d addressed it sooner… I grew up hearing about the ‘sun smell’ in our sheets… Mom (yes – I’m bringing her up again) always told me that hanging your sheets
on the line outside made them smell like the sun.
But of course we got a home that didn’t accommodate for that and had bought a clothes horse. What a horse. What a ride. Dirty as it was…”
Let the sun shine, I say. Your linen is aired, Daughter.
