columbia sunday

The Lily Pad Laundry is off Green Meadows Road, near Murray's and across the street from Domino's and the Car Wash. It is handy to wash the clothes at the new place then drive to the Lily Pad, throw things into dryers to get them started before heading over to the old place to do a few things. On other days, while the clothes are tumbling, it is nice to drive across the small side street to vaccuum and wash the car. It is handy, the Lily Pad is, and the sun shines bright through the large windows and you get to see other people wash and dry their clothes and go about the daily business of life.

Sunday morning was women's morning at the Lily Pad it seemed and I ran into Lisa (little Lisa of the Catholic Church) who was carrying in her clean laundry, like me, to dry it. We chatted briefly. Her husband insists he can fix their dryer, it has been three weeks. She is tired of trekking to the Lily Pad but will continue to do so. Will continue she says with a good-natured roll of her eyes. Yup and see ya, I holler over my shoulder waving, having finished folding kids clothes and my clothes, underwear included.

The sun was warm Sunday morning and two thousand things were accomplished before church, including the selling of a few more items (the small black couch and two round chairs). A young couple bought them, they were very nice, I cut them a deal. They bought cd's also.

Church was uneventful. The sermon was good. I wrote copious notes. Bob Hahn had a word following the message about a woman who was having flashes of anger and it was affecting her relationships and I thought, "dang, she's going through menopause" and it wouldn't be me would it? Though this past week there was that altercation on FB with someone who having been fired from her teaching position in the Christian School because she was single and pregnant began waving the magic wand of injustice about and the equally nauseating wand of 'they have broken the law'(oh really?). And so, angry with her finger-pointing I calmly asked a few rhetorical questions to which she responded with a backlash of vitriol. Christian love. She blocked me from responding again, which I would not have done anyway. The argument was useless, was over. Nonetheless, it still hurt, it still stung and again, I asked God: when will I learn to keep my big mouth shut. Upon reading the post I could have just gone on and ignored it all, and possibly should have. Was I the woman they were speaking of in church? Should I have gone up for prayer? The sun was bright and the air hot and still as I stepped out of the cool confines of the church building on Sunday, alone.

Then there was that inexorable sadness to Sunday afternoon without anyone to talk to. That stretch of loneliness. Yes, I could have sorted and cleaned more at the new place but instead went to Sears shopping for a lawnmower, then home. A nap sped through the transom of my mind but instead there was a bike ride to the old place, a gathering of things and a trip to the pool. The water was clear and warm. There was no one else around. I had it all to myself.

The place on Clover is nearly barren now. Large and open with many empty spaces. Rooms have been cleaned and vaccuumed. Closets emptied of contents. All of the dreams that were built upon this place, in these rooms. Gone. A hint of failure hangs in the air. New beginnings? They are just fabrications to make myself feel better. To pull myself up by the bootstraps. To move on.

It was only desperation which created the need for downsizing. Desperation and a desire for change. Change the external and the internal may follow. May follow. It is not a given.

Still, we as women smile and make lemonade. We mount our bicycles again, speak soft words and ride to Ragtag in the heat and humidity of a Missouri summer evening, enjoying the air as it washes over us, enjoying life's simple pleasures.