Laundromat

The muggy hotness of the room is stifling.  Sweat beads all over my body, making puddles, dark creases, and a glistening mustache.  Despite the sweat, heat, and there being a million people, the room smells fresh.  The chemical sweetness of a multitude of different detergent brands wafts into the air with each machine door that opens.

It’s laundry day.  And apparently Sunday is everyone’s laundry day in Florida City.  The Laundromat is packed with people from every background and age group.  Except white.  I’m the only white person in the room.

I struggled to keep Lucy June from running off while I get our laundry out of the dryer and into the cart to be folded.  It’s a one step forward, two steps back situation.  I get a pair of panties into the cart.  Success!  I chase LJ across the room.  I get two pairs of socks into the cart.  Success!  I pull LJ from under a table.  Seeing me struggle, another Mom comes across the room, “Would you like me to hold the baby?”  Another Mom also come over, “I can hold your cart while you unload.”

Each time I have moved in my life I have become more segregated.  Not intentionally.  But it seemed that each time I had less and less exposure to different cultures and races.  It’s something that I was acutely aware of in Tennessee.  My coworkers were white.  My friends were mostly white.  Then, by becoming a stay at home working Mom, I just didn’t see anyone.  Especially anyone new.  

When Zach and I decided to actually go on this adventure my heart leapt at the chance to experience different areas of the country and different cultures.  And here I was, the odd ball out, and feeling self conscious.  

In 2005 I spent a month in Zimbabwe and for the first time in my life I was a minority.   I stood out like a beacon.  That experience taught me a lot about myself.  About my unconscious thoughts.  About the nature of hate.  The nature of discrimination.  It also taught me that people are people.  And that love is love.

As I sat in the Laundromat, melting, feeling self conscious, and thinking about all of this.  My beautiful, red-headed, unselfconscious daughter reached out to the big black man next to us and stroked his arm.  She smiled her wrinkled nose smile at him as I apologized for her lack of boundaries.  He just smiled and cooed at her, “You’re loving on Big Joe aren’t you?”  She giggled and stroked his arm again.

I love watching her on this trip.  I love seeing how children bring us all back together again.  How parenting can break social boundaries just because you’re all in the same boat.  I love that she doesn’t know any difference between one person and another yet.  We often joke that she is our Ambassador.  She loves people and people love her.

We try to teach our kids so much but often we can learn so much from them.  We can learn to just be.  That people are just people.  And that love is love.