Labor

"We in the country try to bring our hands into such a state as will be most convenient for working with. So we cut our nails; sometimes we turn up our sleeves. And here people purposely let their nails grow as long as they will, and link on small saucers by way of studs, so thay they can do nothing with their hands." -Leo Tolstory, Anna Karenina

 

These are the words of Levin, a country farmer who has come to Moscow to propose to Kitty, a young woman from a wealthy family. Levin's friend, Stepan Arkadyevitch responds that people grow out their nails to show that they work with their minds not their hands. We have not come so far today, in the way we view labor, often doing anything we can to escape it.

 

And even though I broke down last week and bought a new washing machine, after two months of hauling our dirty clothes to the laundromat, my one goal this weekend is to do a load of laundry in the old wringer washer I found in the crawl space of our cabin in Michigan. What was I hoping to accomplish? I think more than anything, I wanted to get my hands wet. I wanted to push the fabric through the rollers, being careful not to get my fingers caught, which a bit of research revealed to be a devastating injury. I chose an easy load: one set of twin sheets from the girls' bunk beds. The rest of them, I confess, are piled in plastic tubs for the return trip to Indy and a final destination inside my new-fangled machine at home.

 

The most difficult part was filling two tubs without working our old well pump so much that I would have to be replace it too. Toward this end, I walked through the house, gathering up old water glasses and finding water anywhere I could to ease the load. I poured out the pitcher of water we keep in the fridge to drink. I dumped the foot rinse bucket in as well. When the sky began to drizzle, I considered setting out buckets to collect water, all this while working 100 feet from the lake. I managed about to get the tub half full, stuffing a bread bag in place of the missing drain stopper.

 

I wanted it to be hard. I wanted to labor over that laundry, but I found it surprisingly easy. The crank turned with little effort from me, pushing the water out of the fabric. I put it through again and again, until the only visible water appeared as the bottom hem went through the rollers. I took to throwing the sheet over my shoulder as I approached the end, to keep it from falling back into the tub. My clothes became as wet as the sheets. I was surprised when I stopped cranking; the wetness was wringing itself out of me as well. This easy labor had worked me into a sweat. How is it that I find it much harder to pin together these words? I wish they would flow from me like water or my own sweat. Sometimes a story does pour out of me that way, and I am tricked into thinking that writing is easy, but it is only because I have discounted the days or weeks it took me to get myself to the page. Many of my stories involve some kind of work, kneading bread or hand-whipping egg whites into meringue or mending jeans, field research that I must do before I can write. It helps that this research, like today's laundry labor, feeds and clothes my family.

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