The Laundry

In Greek mythology, the gods cursed Sisyphus.  His fate was to spend eternity pushing a heavy rock up a hill, only to have it roll to the bottom again as son as it peaked the top.  A lifetime of labor never finished.  Each end only a new beginning.

As I’ve pondered this story, my inner being struggles against the devastating frustration it produces in me.  What would I think about if I were Sisyphus?  What would I brood on?  Obsess over?  What would I learn?

What was Sisyphus’s relationship with the rock?  What about the ground he continued to tread?  Did he learn and apply if he was never to have other circumstances to which he might apply his hard-learned lessons?  What transgression earns such a punishment?

I’ve noticed that our so-called “blue-collar” jobs in the U.S. are akin to Sisyphus’s toil.  Clean a toilet to have it immediately soiled.  Assemble a factory product to have another brought to you on the conveyor belt.  Flip a burger.  And another.  And another.  These jobs are generally compensated less than jobs with changing projects, goals, and objectives.  Yet they are both indispensable to our society and also bear Sisyphus's curse.

Monotony.  Was this Sisyphus’s punishment?  Is monotony a negative state, something punitive?  Something that yields low fiscal rewards, low privilege in our society.  Boredom.

I have three laundry hampers in my house.  The children stuff their dirties in the upstairs when they extract them from the floor in their weekly room-cleaning.  James and mine overflows with towels, sheets, and large clothes.  But the end game for each of the two is when their contents pour into the confluence of the laundry room hamper; for it is this mighty river that finally flows into the ocean of the actual washing machine.  I empty the last of its contents into the machine, smile contentedly, push start, then return to the kitchen.  During my absence, Collin spilled his juice.  “Get a rag, love,” I sigh.  He wipes at the spill, then trots the rag into the laundry room, and drops it in the hamper.  The rock rolled back down the hill.

One evening I rushed to get the laundry switched in a small window before putting the kids to bed.  If I could just push the rock a little farther up the hill my day would somehow feel a bit more productive.  Jammie-clad, Caroline and Collin scampered in, “I wanna help, I wanna help!”  Shit.  Caught.  They’ve been “helping” all day and I just want to push the rock up quickly by myself, alone with my thoughts, without answering questions, or explaining how to do it in minute detail.  “Mommy, I can’t reach the bottom of the hamper.  Can you hold me upside down?”  “Look!  The water’s like a waterfall!  Can I put my hand in it?”  “Can I please please please pour the soap in?”  “Mommy, where does the orange triangle point on the dial point?  I forget.”  A smile trickles into my malaise as I sit down to watch them work.  They love to push the rock and never once think about its beginning or end.

What would Sisyphus have done if someone joined him in the monotony?  Might he have felt possessive about his rock, his task?  Might he have naughtily believed none should join him because they couldn’t do it as well, as fast, as thoroughly?  What if he allowed the help, company, tutelage?

Buddhism asserts that everything is always changing.  If I sit in a chair and do absolutely nothing, change still happens.  Eventually the chair will break down, my body will break down, the environment around me will alter.  According to this, Sisyphus’s trip up the hill would have never been exactly the same, no matter how repetitive it seemed.  Each time the hill would wear a bit underneath the rock.  Each time his body would grow stronger.  The scenery around him would slowly change.

So maybe monotony is a choice.  Monotony is closing my mind to the miniature details obscurely hidden in the redundancies of life.  Would laundry change if I saw each load as distinct, different, laden with unexplored possibility?  Brother Lawrence found mystical riches of divine knowledge in the drudgery duties of the kitchen, garden, and soapy bucket.  Maybe it is here that busy hands allow freedom for the mind to grasp God’s deepest truths.