Karmic Laws of Laundry

I’ve never really believed in Karma as it relates to people.

For starters the thought of my needing to live over and over certain relationships and situations until I learn whatever lesson is involved sounds exhausting.   If I’m anything, it is stubborn. I think after the third or fourth reincarnation I would simply dig in my heels , set my jaw and get ready for a very long ride.

Also, I’ve always imagined God infinitely possible to create an infinite number of spirits and personalities. I’ve never thought about there being any limits to anything related to here and now or the next life.

However, I do though believe that there is a Karmic relationship at play as it relates to laundry. Just this weekend a very intelligent friend of mine posted an “after” picture of her laundry on Facebook. The image showed five different socks neatly lined up on top of the dryer after being laundered. She could have sworn each sock had a mate going into the wash, but upon removal from the dryer each was utterly alone; singles in a world of pairs.

This is one of my friends who one day soon I suspect will have a Ph.D. in something I can barely spell. She’s smart. Entirely capable of working out complex problems, yet cycle after cycle she struggles with learning about her socks’ desires to be on their own.

I have a particular sweater that wash after wash I keep following the same pattern. I repeat to myself the same mantra each time I prepare to wash it, “I will only dry this sweater for five minutes. I will only dry this sweater for five minutes.”  Each time I start off well-intentioned and each time I become focused on my own selfish needs, allowing my sweater to tumble about in a hot dryer for longer than planned.

Sure, every now and again I kick myself when I take out the finished clothes, hanging the now shrunken, knitted garment on a hanger. My remorse though is never fully realized until I put it on and find my wrists jutting inches away from the now shortened sleeves.

Maybe we’re destined to relearn those lessons we’ve been working at the longest. I’ve been doing my own laundry for almost 40 years. You would think that after four decades of practice I would be, by now, making some progress toward perfect. Instead, my laundry room and I are stuck in a recurring cycle of “Oh no! It’s you again.”

If the kitchen is the heart of the home, then the laundry room is the gut. Some days I just have to “gut it out,” repeat my clothes washing mantras and keep searching for the land of the lost socks. And until all lessons are learned and sock reclaimed, I’ll just keep rewashing that sweater and stretching the sleeves before I hang it out to dry.