I lamented to mom that now she had eight sets of sheets and eight towels and eight pillowcases to launder, and I offered to help.  But she enthused, “That’s okay.  I love doing laundry!  I have always loved doing laundry!”  The bathroom in the Bawden house sported above the tub a small hinged door, behind which descended into the darkness of the basement a laundry shoot.  As a little boy I felt tempted to slide down the shoot, but I never did—a good thing, I am sure.  And I remember the old washing machine and wringer and tanks, long disused, and the drying lines still spotted with clothespins like wooden birds below the open joists of the seven-foot-tall basement, perpetually dark.  As a small girl and then a grown-up girl, Mom used these machines to wash the family laundry.  The washing machine churned noisily back and forth.  But there was no spin cycle.  Mom slopped the soapy wet clothes into a tank of clean water for a rinse, then passed them through the electric-motor wringer, pressing the clothes between two tight rolling pins made of wood.  The launderer needed to be very careful not to let the wringer grab her fingers or hair shirt sleeves: serious injury could result.  A second rinse in a second clean water tank, a second wringing, and the clothes were ready to be hung on the lines, either outside during spring through fall, or in the basement in winter.  “I’ll do it a little at a time,” Mom reassured me, not at all put out.  In fact, the thought that our company had been comfortable and dry with these bed clothes and towels gave her a sort of familial connecting comfort.  She finished on this National Day of Service, the 22^nd anniversary of the shocking and traumatic destruction of the Twin Towers and the Pentagon and so much incinerated life by a new kind of terrorism.  The service I chose lacked glamor, and I wondered guiltily if it were worthy of the trauma and sacrifice that produced this special day.  Millions of people in thousands of places doing all manner of service.  Me?  I chose to pick weeds.  Not just any weeds, mind you, but puncturevine weeds growing along the Jordan River Parkway trail, with their two-pronged “goat head” seeds that puncture all passing tires and ruin many a bike ride.  I joined Jordan River Commission staffers, and other volunteers, and after four hours, my heavy-duty black plastic bag was full and heavy, weighing perhaps sixty pounds.  It must have contained ten thousand goat head seeds, which I was happy to equate to ten thousand saved bicycle tires.  One monster had creeped to a diameter of six feet and bragged hundreds of noxious seeds.  At a convention for city officials this week, I spent my networking breaks tying quilts for Stitching Hearts, quilts which will be given to foster and homeless children, a warm, soft, comforting homemade possession all their own that they can take with them from home to home or camp to camp—for some kids, the quilt will be their only possession in this world.  Stitching and cutting and tying with these silver-haired ladies in their seventies and eighties, my loneliness ebbed a bit.  While not the love I have searched for—a kind, intimate, whispering partner love—I felt happy in this new relationship, joining good people in service, small service, like pulling puncturevine, filling out immigration forms, tying quilts, washing sheets—I felt happy in this other kind of companionship and love, that comes with the giving of oneself, no matter how small the service.  For me, smaller is better, because big always overwhelms.  I can do the little things.  Stitching and chatting and chuckling, I wondered if this is the type of love and companionship which will temper my sadness and loneliness, which will bring me a measure of happiness and joy, which will carry me through my future days.  It just might be.

(Pictured above: a three-foot radius puncturevine spotted with hundreds of goat head seeds and flowers, hanging from a Russian Olive tree.)