About Living Laundry

As a kid, I used to enjoy a family escape every few weeks with my dad and brother to the town Laundromat. There, laundry was the focus, but try telling that to us! After the first loads were started, we’d get quarters and take a whack at the pinball machine.  We’d eat bizarre foods never allowed at home–pizza, candy, and pop. And finally, we’d watch in amazement as our father would find a way to engage with every single person in the place; telling captivating stories about everyday life. He engaged community in public–at the grocery store, the gas station, and at the laundromat.  I was totally enthralled with my father’s ability to make even mundane time an interesting opportunity for connection and creativity. It was there that I found myself captivated by what can be created in every day life and in everyday public space through community, and how this mundane practice of washing and hanging laundry is a symbol for a regularly scheduled time to check-in with ourselves, listen to what we want to create, learn what’s needed, and then clean out what no longer serves us, all while being witnessed by our communities. We live in the world, we get dirty in our mistakes, we cleanse and take time to start anew, and we ‘try on’ a new day. This is life.

And yet, how often have we waited, allowed the laundry to pile up, until we no longer have what we need to wear in the world? Some of us wait until that last pair of underwear is gone, others are so focused on cleanliness that a small stain will ruin their day. Feng shui experts claim that how you arrange your life at home speaks volumes about how you succeed or fail in the world. And what we wear says a lot about us. I’ve tended to wear a lot of black, so you can’t see the mess! Even these examples clue us into how we adapt to our own baggage or inconsistencies.

Living Laundry gives us the opportunity to redefine ourselves by assessing what’s needed, cleansing out what isn’t, overcoming obstacles by connecting resources, and enriching our communities through living arts. The act of transforming through living arts is the creative practice and process of reinventing the self creatively, and realigning your direction to match your intentions and what you wish to create, whether in your body, your neighborhood, your business, your organization, your family, your partnership, or your community.