(In which I abandon three domestic and one beauty ritual)
Ironing was the first to go. Never mind that during high school I spent Saturday afternoons ironing my father’s shirts as well as my dresses, skirts, blouses, and yes, handkerchiefs. I found ironing meditative, and I loved the sweet, toasty smell of freshly ironed cotton. But the birth of my children, which coincided roughly with the advent of wash-and-wear fabrics, pretty much ended my ironing days.
Even before I let go of ironing, I said goodbye to another domestic ritual: putting away winter clothes. I remember humid spring afternoons in Alabama, when my mother would decide that it was time to store our winter clothes before the moths got them. She spoke with as much urgency as if armies of moths were beating against the window screens, trying to invade our woolens. We would gather sweaters, skirts, jackets, coats, blankets, and scarves—anything remotely related to a sheep—and fold each item carefully, larding it with those evil-smelling moth balls. I can still feel the itchiness of the wool on my sweaty hands, and smell the deadly naphtha fumes. Since I stopped moth-proofing my winter clothes, I have had many a sweater damaged by the claws of kneading cats, but never by a moth. Where are the moths of yesteryear? Did they fall prey to climate change or did the dearth of garments made of pure wool drive them to extinction?
I also used to help my mother fold sheets, which was a two-woman job, a kind of minuet in which she and I would stand at opposite ends of the dining room with a sheet stretched between us. We would fold the sheet lengthwise once, twice, and on the third fold we would simultaneously give a sharp tug to get rid of wrinkles (and woe to me if I dropped my end), after which we would walk towards each other and make another couple of folds in a crosswise direction. The idea was to make it look as though the sheets, which had dried on the line, had been ironed.
Years later, two changes came on the bedding scene and revolutionized the folding rituals. The first was the advent of fitted sheets, which were terrific except for the difficulty of folding them. The second was the surge in popularity of that nordic godsend, the duvet. Fitted sheets and duvets made sleeping more comfortable and bed-making easy, but folding them neatly became a challenge. One day I asked myself, why fold at all? The bottom sheet would be stretched taut, and as for the duvet cover, since duvets are lumpy anyway, nobody would know if the cover hadn’t been properly folded. So one laundry day, in a burst of revolutionary ardor, I got a large plastic bag, stuffed in the bottom sheets and duvet covers, bunged it in a corner of the closet, shut the door, and got on with my day.
From puberty until I married, I went to bed every night with twenty-seven brush rollers in my hair. When blow dryers were invented, I would spend precious morning minutes blowing and brushing in the hopes of looking soignée and in charge, of my hair if of nothing else. Then, several months ago, I stopped. I put away the brush and the hair dryer and, to my surprise, discovered that my hair is wavy bordering on curly. The less I do to it, the more it curls, as if in gratitude for being spared the blow dryer torture. True, I wouldn’t show up for a job interview wearing my Medusa look, but there are no job interviews in my future. I don’t want to read too much into this hair thing, but I like to think of my out-of-control look as a sign of my ability to finally accept myself for who I am, frizzes and all.
