Laundry

I sit with my beer and orange juice while a faithful washer groans its way through a modest load of towels and underwear. The cacophony of morning includes two-stroke leaf blowers across the street, Harley riders roaring by, and cheerful but vociferous wild things that do not apologize for their dominance of the airwaves.

Just outside the open window, the Pacific looms large. Sinewy vines have flung themselves over the shoulders of trees and wound themselves around neon blossoms and beautiful fruit.

God is not bothered by the intrusive clamor and overbearing pigmentation. I am. Yesterday, alone on a windy shore, I circled things into simple black and white.

“I don’t like being one of 7 billion,” I tell God. “The entanglement and commotion make me claustrophobic.”

“Sorry to hear that, Chip,” God teases. (She calls me Chip, as in “chip off the old block” just to bug me.) “Would you like your own planet?”        

“Yes, please.” I nod, dipping my toes in salty water.

The Fluidity smiles and flexes, the tide rolls in, and I see that I am already a planet unto myself. Each nucleus spinning my direction is its own planet. The electrons dance, the stars align. I see that I am a singularity made of singularities held together by unspeakable complexities. I am one of One.

I breathe with grudging acceptance and the Fecundity loosens its grip. I relax. The grass withers. The flower fades. But the Gorilla Glue, the Relatable Pacer of the Universe doesn’t let go, doesn’t stop talking, transforming, or replaneting.

A science teacher of mine once declared, “Cell division is a goddamned miracle.” His asides were not often helpful or accurate, but from the perspective of my own DNA, he may have had a point. Cell division can be a very good thing.

God taps me on the shoulder. “Um, I hate to interrupt, but it’s time to hang the clothes.”

“I know,” I say. “Otherwise, they’ll mildew.”

The neighbor’s laughter sounds like a bird. I can’t tell anything apart anymore, and maybe I don’t want to. It’s all a bodacious blur, a heart-wrenching opera, a country-western shindig, a tsunami of sound, a smorgasbord of color.

The God of All that Ripens saunters seductively to the washer, and we begin the ritual of hanging our laundry up to dry, temporarily halting the march of mildew and mayhem. We air our grievances along with our love, holding our shape against the coming formlessness.

A haze of fruit flies rises from the feast of fallen star fruit, and I realize that even in the tumult and dissolution, all is well. All is very well.