Reflectionary

Hot Sheets

The last time the Domestic Goddess changed my bed, I instructed her to use the flannel sheets. The weather had turned sharply colder, and I wanted to feel their soft warmth that night.

But the madness of midlife change dictates that sometimes, unpredictably, my formerly cool night body rages and raves and cannot abide the comforts of these sheets. Flannel on flannel, nightgown between sheets, raises my personal thermostat higher. I jerk awake. The clock shocks me, showing 1:15 or 1:30. Why, I wonder in confusion, did I wake? Then I feel the damp hair on the back of my neck and the clammy fabric of my nightgown. I sigh and get out of bed, looking in the dark for something else to wear, and when I climb back in, I fling a leg over the covers.

Collateral Damage

In the near morning she called to me, her bed covered with the signs of sickness. I bundled sheets, mattress pad, pajamas into the washing machine. I washed my hands, thoroughly, compulsively, hoping to avoid the virus keeping one fifth of the student body home from school.

An old feather pillow needed washing, too, a pillow so old I cannot remember when I purchased it. I put it in the washer before I left the house this morning; it needed hot water and soap to survive the insult of illness.

In the afternoon I returned to move it to the dryer and discovered a pillow apocalypse, feathers everywhere. Feathers coated the sides of the laundry sink, where the rinse water drains,and plugged the drain and encircled the wash tub.

The pillow begged my pardon and asked politely to retire. I granted my permission and cleaned up the feathers.

Green Stains

The cutting board perches precariously at the top of a tower of kitchen regulars: a phone book, some mail, the colander washed and dried but for some mysterious reason never put away. Atop the cutting board lists a plastic bowl, holding the heart of an avocado, stained stripily browning green. Beside it lie the darkening, shriveling shards of skin, discarded, no part of the beauty plan.

A slurry of cucumber pulp and seeds affixes to porcelain sink, stainless forks, well-used scrubby and well-worn cookie sheet.

I place the bowl and cutting board in the sink, discarding the pit and the skin; as warm water flows from the faucet, I drizzle lavendar-scented dish soap over all , and the green stains begin to fade from view.

Old Shelf

My great grandmother Emma received an enormous china cupboard as a wedding present, meant to hold her wedding china, a chrysanthemum-sprayed Haviland Limoges pattern. More than a century later, many of its pieces survive. The teacups, nearly transparent, show the hardest wear, but even the broken ones call out to be saved, delicate and ladylike in their distress.

The cupboard stands in my living foom, older than this house by 30 years. Movers wondered if it would come through the door, but its three triangular pieces just squeezed through the vestibule. Its shelves groan and sway with the weight of china and silver aging gently beside my mother's Royal Doulton ladies, their dresses blowing in an imaginary breeze.

Down below the widest, least supported shelf worries me. It holds things we hide from view or tuck away to make room for nativity scenes or spring flowers on the mantelpiece. A rotating set of family photographs rests here between turns on top of the piano. The man-sized stole given me as an ordination gift lies unworn in its box.

I look at the sides of the cupboard and wonder if it would survive another journey? Its joints loosen with age.

In the Dryer

This morning I found in the dryer a tangle of sheets, placed there by my oldest. He is home with not much to do, and I am busy, and I asked for help with the laundry this week.

The sheets wound together and through one another, in some places sinuous, in other places lumpen. King size ivory sheets from my room, queen size soft green for the guest bed and khaki twin sheets from the boys' room wended their way through the dryer cycle yesterday. The largest fitted sheets remain wettest, twisted violently in their centers, holding pillowcases in their ends.

Somehow the flannel sheets, covered with a pattern of spaniels, retrievers and ducks, remained separate, keeping to the outside edges of the dance. Now they sit lonely atop the dryer, hunters waiting to see what will emerge from the wild woods as the day passes.

This morning I found in the dryer a tangle of sheets, placed there by my oldest. He is home with not much to do, and I am busy, and I asked for help with the laundry this week.

The sheets wound together and through one another, in some places sinuous, in other places lumpen. King size ivory sheets from my room, queen size soft green for the guest bed and khaki twin sheets from the boys' room wended their way through the dryer cycle yesterday. The largest fitted sheets remain wettest, twisted violently in their centers, holding pillowcases in their ends.

Somehow the flannel sheets, covered with a pattern of spaniels, retrievers and ducks, remained separate, keeping to the outside edges of the dance. Now they sit lonely atop the dryer, hunters waiting to see what will emerge from the wild woods as the day passes.