Antique Tin Flowers Photographed While Kneeling in Grass in White Jeans © 2008
Today – it is only 9:43 am – and already I have had one of those life lesson days. You’d think I wouldn’t have to expose my mind to such philosophical points of view so early, but lessons are not planned. They simply happen. Here’s today’s lesson:
Don’t Skip the Basics
How obvious! Yes? No!
I’m frazzled these days – change of seasons, change of life, changes in life. Ordinary and not-so-ordinary living kinds of things. My mind was full this morning chewing on all those nasty bits and I was giving it unlimited chomping privileges.
But there were things to do, whether or not I wanted to do them, and I had baskets of dirty clothes and a rainy day and a morning without a deadline or appointment. Good time for tackling the ever-erupting laundry hamper. Mind half on my task, I sorted the clothes in the appropriate piles and carried the first load down to the washing machine.
Whites were first. I hate white clothes – all that underwear and a dozen-plus tee-shirts to be sorted by sizes and folded. White socks without their mates. A few cotton shirts that actually need ironing. (Why, I ask myself over and over, do I wear these shirts? Because they feel so clean and crisp when I need that clean, crisp feeling, I answer). And a pair of white jeans.
I pulled out the spot remover and tackled hard-to-erase grass stains from the knees of the jeans, stains that were ground in well. Ground in while I was kneeling in a thick, wet lawn to take a close up photo of an antique tin flower that had caught my eye. The stain came out, but it took a while. A rather long while.
After all the clothes were in the machine, I realized I hadn’t checked pockets. Water was spraying all over, the suds were bubbling, and I simply didn’t feel like putting my hands in the soapy mess.
“Nah,” I convinced myself, way too easily. “Nothing in those pockets. Just jeans.” And so I clunked the lid down and went off to tackle the challenges in my world. I planned on counteracting all those garbage thoughts with some wholesome journal writing.
I was really into my words when the washer stopped, and feeling more than a little irrationally irritable at the machine, I stalked over to it and dumped the clothes from the washer into the dryer. I was back in my favorite writing nook when a thought crept out of my brain for examination. “Do you want to check those pockets now?” it whispered.
“NO,” I retorted. It’s a little sad when you find yourself screaming – and you are sitting all alone in a quiet house.
So of course, you know what happened, don’t you?
There was a cheap black ink pen in my pocket. It made it through the wash cycle, but the plastic ink tube erupted in that warm dryer and leaked ink into my tumbling clothes. And then the ink tumbled and tumbled through those white clothes as they tumbled and tumbled through the dryer.
I retrieved my clothes when the buzzer sounded.
Jackson Pollock would have been proud.
So the few seconds it would have taken me to do the basics have turned into hours now needed to clean the inside of the dryer, salvage what I can of a mound of black spattered white clothing, and decide how to replace the necessaries that need replacing.
I just put my second load into the washing machine. And I paid more attention and did the complete job this time. Including pockets. That mindfulness thing. Be aware. Pay attention.
Oh, yeah! Mindfulness. I’m thinking it even applies to doing laundry.
About Bo Mackison
Oops. You might try a bit of bleach. 🙂
hairspray…
Love your post..and the muted colors of the image that you’ve accompanied it with. Ain’t it the truth? Never enough time to do it right the first time? It’s a motto I try to live by. Sounds like you’re had quite a day! Tomorrow – you get to start again anew.
The photo is so cool. I gasped when the color painted.
Ouch about the cheap ink. Funny how the subconscious seemed to know. Well, I thought it was going to end up being a cell phone…my least favorite thing to wash.
Outside of having a good laugh at your expense (sorry!), you made me re-dedicate myself to making sure my pockets are empty before putting anything in the wash!
Original! Ces fleurs en papier se prêtent à la photographie, bravo !
Original! These flowers lend themselves to photography, bravo!
I hope today will be a better day for you… if the ink does not come out, you can always call the ink cloths new gardening duds.
I love the tin flowers – is it just a bit of wire holding the layers together? I wonder what type of paint they used? You captured them beautifully!
The photo goes so well with the post, hope you have a wonderful,laundry free weekend:)
The tin flowers are really cool! I love the pictures. Too bad about the laundry, though, it sounds like it may look pretty cool.
I know about the mind chomping, letting it go full reign, and forgetting the basics. Even in enlightenment, there still is laundry to do. Enjoyed your writing, and the oh so neat capture of the antique flowers. 🙂
These flowers are really neat. They do look old. Hope you recovered from laundry day. I hate doing laundry, too!
Many colors in this Antique Flowers picture…That’s why so cool
The antique flowers are great..I studied them trying to figure out what they were, before reading your post. 🙂
Ah…domestic duties. :O I am trying to view such with mindfulness!
I would see the ink clothes as painting clothes or rags for painting. 🙂 I washed and dried a pack of gum once..left weird hard spots all over everything..naturally, it was a load of nice clothes..NOT painting clothes. hee, hee
Loved your image and your words..well done, well done!