Rethinking Showers

Good grooming, advises Amy Vanderbilt in the 1967 edition of her book of etiquette, which I received as a wedding present, means “a daily, and often twice daily, shower or bath, [and] fresh underwear and stockings daily or twice daily….” Even in my most perfectionistic moments I was not insane enough to follow her advice to the letter, but since my arrival in the land of endless hot water nine years earlier, I had taken to heart the American custom of daily showering and frequent shampooing. “You’ve washed your hair again?” my mother would exclaim as I struggled to fit the dryer hood over my twenty-seven rollers. She was also amazed that, along with my schoolmates, I felt obliged to wear a different outfit every day, which meant tossing everything I had worn the day before into the washing machine. 

Back then, America’s bathroom shelves mostly featured a bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo. But in the ensuing decades bath products proliferated to include soaps for different kinds of skin, shampoos for different kinds of hair, conditioners (both rinse-out and leave-in), and body scrubs, butters, and gels. Showers grew longer as we applied the right product to the right body part and then made sure that whatever we had slathered on was sluiced down the drain. 

Now, trillions of gallons of water and mountains of plastic bottles later, things may be changing. According to the  New York Times, during the pandemic many Americans stopped showering every day, and were amazed when their body did not exude pestilential smells, their skin did not erupt in gruesome infections, and their scalp did not drip grease onto their shoulders. 

On the contrary, many people who had been bedeviled with dry, flaky, itchy skin noticed that the condition improved when they stopped scrubbing every square inch of their bodies every single day. And, when given a break from too-frequent shampoos and blow drying, formerly lank, straw-like hair showed its gratitude by growing glossier and more manageable.

With an eight-minute shower using up to 17 gallons of water, not to mention the electricity to heat that water, plus the products being washed down the drain, the trend towards less-frequent showering is good news for the environment. But why stop there? As long as we’re moderating our cleaning compulsions, we should think about laundry. 

If we had to wash clothes by hand we would think twice before tossing a shirt we’ve only worn once into the dirty clothes basket. But since washing machines are here to do the work, that carefree flick of the wrist at the end of the day requires less time and energy than looking at the shirt, deciding if it can be worn again, and hanging it carefully on a hanger. 

The Swedish designer Gudrun Sjoden believes that we should reevaluate our laundry habits: “Generally we all wash far too often! Wear your clothes until they are dirty, before which you can air your clothes and remove individual stains.” I know how to air a grievance, but I’m not sure how you air a shirt (by hanging it out the window?) but lately I have taken to hanging outfits I’ve worn once or twice in the bathroom overnight to get rid of whatever noxious odors may be clinging to them. As for removing individual stains by hand and then wearing the item again, I haven’t reached that level of ecological virtue yet. 

This is a world away from Amy Vanderbilt, who advised us to “wear a simple, starched [my italics] house dress, a clean one daily, if you must do housework…” Once the house was sparkling, the dress went into the hamper, since changing for dinner was one of the hallmarks of gracious living: “Fresh clothes and make-up, even if you are to be alone with the children for a simple meal, are psychologically sound and bring a needed change in the day’s pace.” 

Her writing bursts with the exuberance of an era when belief in progress and the endless availability of resources was at its peak. It is also a celebration of indoor plumbing, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and other mod cons that made possible this manic changing of dresses and stockings, showering and grooming, even in the absence of domestic staff.

No wonder so many housewives in mid-century America became addicted to Valium. Today our stress comes from a different source: the knowledge of the havoc that our way of life has wreaked on the planet, and our obligation to do something about it right now, by whatever means are available to each of us, even if it requires giving up habits that would make Amy turn in her grave.

Let's All Do Less Laundry

I spent over an hour today folding and putting away laundry.  This of course doesn't count the gathering, sorting, washing and drying that took most of the day yesterday.

Time was when I cared for two small children and a husband, milked goats, baked bread, taught  the plus-que-parfait du subjonctif to recalcitrant undergraduates...and did the laundry.

Now I do laundry for just two people, at two week intervals, yet it seems disproportionately taxing both in terms of my energy and the resources--water, detergent, electricity--it consumes.

When I was growing up in Barcelona, back in the 18th century, all the washing was done by hand--  by the live-in maid, in cold water which used to give her chillblains in the winter.  My mother and my aunts washed their own frilly blouses and nightgowns as well as their non-disposable menstrual pads (I said it was the 18th century, didn't I?).

Needless to say, with just one woman doing the wash for six people, we did not dump clothes into the laundry hamper recklessly.  I don't remember how often the bedsheets or the towels were changed, but my white uniform blouse was washed and ironed weekly.  The woolen uniform jumper was dry-cleaned once a year. This was possible because the minute we arrived in the classroom my classmates and I put on long-sleeved white cotton smocks that got sent home periodically to have the ink stains removed.  How often did I change my underwear?  I distinctly remember laying my still-warm undershirt and underpants on the chair at night....

For all that early training, though, I now do laundry with as much abandon as any native-born American, as if water, electricity and detergent would be available world without end, amen.

I might never have thought to write about this had I not recently come across the Swedish designer Gudrun Sjoden, who advises her clients to wear their old clothes with pride.  To make clothes last longer, she adds, don't wash them unless they are dirty.  Otherwise, air them out and spot clean them.  If you must wash them, use as little detergent as possible (http://www.gudrunsjoden.com/us/gudruns-world/gudruns-world/our-environmental-thinking/the-art-of-dressing-in-an-environmentally-friendly-way ).

I can't imagine an American designer making such a pronouncement.

And yet, why not go a bit longer between launderings?  Unless clothes are infested with vermin, will they make us sick somehow or put others off with their stench if we wear them a few times before throwing them in the wash?

Probably not, but it takes courage to adopt this European-style laundry philosophy. Perhaps there should be a support group, Americans for Less Frequent Laundry, whose members would get together for coffee on days they would otherwise spend loading barely dirty clothes into their washing machines.

Better Than Roses

Celebrated St. Valentine's Day by washing the curtains in the master bedroom, which is the only room in the house to have them.  Since the view out of our windows constitutes a major part of the entertainment around here--the storms coming in, the mountains changing colors, the deer in the meadow, the turkeys in the driveway--we like to keep it unobstructed.  Besides, we don't care if the deer and the turkeys can see into the house.  We do have window shades, which we pull down on really hot summer days, and I've noticed that our guests from the city tend to keep them closed at night.

We have curtains in our bedroom because I don't much like its proportions, and I thought that, short of tearing down the walls, curtains might make it look and feel better.  The curtains are yellow-and-white-striped toile, to go with the yellow, white, and blue duvet cover, which has medallions featuring a shepherdess and her lute-playing mate--all of which I made myself.  (Don't be too impressed:  these are the first curtains I have sewed since 1967, although I have in the interim sometimes made curtains out of bedsheets by poking holes in the hems and running the rods through them.)

I hadn't touched the bedroom curtains since the day I hung them three or four years ago.  They didn't look particularly dirty, but I thought they must be, so into the laundry they went.  I thought about ironing them after they dried, but I've never ironed curtains, and I don't intend to start now.  I know that Ma, in Little House In The Prairie was always hanging "freshly washed and ironed curtains" on the windows of their various cabins, and it seemed to cheer everybody up, but I gave up trying to imitate Ma a long time ago--autres temps, autres moeurs.

My Valentine helped me take the curtains down and put them back up, and did not get upset when I tugged too hard at one curtain and pulled the rod bracket out of the window frame, but went quietly to get a hammer and fixed it.  That's something we've gotten quite good at, he and I:  when one of us spills red wine or wrecks the car, we figure he/she already feels bad enough, and does not need additional scolding.

Then he took the car to have snow tires put on (don't ask) and I followed in the truck so he wouldn't have to wait in the shop.  Before all this, at breakfast, we exchanged little gifts, and it's always a good thing when neither of us forgets. 

But if he had forgotten, I think (I hope!) I would have had the sense to pay attention instead to the help freely given, the mistakes calmly tolerated--and known that these gifts, given seven days a week, all year long, nourish the heart better than dozens of roses, armfuls of chocolates, or even a diamond tennis bracelet.

D Is For DONE

...my laundry, that is.

Laundry Issues

This is the time of year when I dry our laundry outdoors, on one of those umbrella thingies that we put up and take down each laundry day. (Laundry day chez moi happens every two weeks.)

I like hanging out laundry. I've written about its peculiar pleasures before, but boy, is it a lot of work--not, perhaps, in comparison with scrubbing floors on one's knees, but much harder than throwing clothes in the dryer and pushing a button.

Our laundry room is on the second floor, which means making five or six trips down the stairs carrying baskets full of wet clothes, and as many back upstairs carrying the (thankfully, lighter) dry clothes. Hanging out laundry means spending many minutes on tiptoes, with my arms stretched to the sky, pinning clothes to the line, and doing many forward bends to pick up clothes pins and clothes, and then again to take them down. It means making supplementary trips to the back yard every couple of hours to check which clothes are dry. And on days when it suddenly starts to rain it means rushing out to rescue the clothes before they get completely drenched.

I'm sure this is good for me--all that stretching and bending and carrying--and it's good for the clothes, which smell lovely, and it's kind to our poor bedeviled earth. Plus, it gives me a pure feeling that I enjoy. I'm just saying, it's a lot of work.

Domestications

Today is laundry day. Years ago, I decided that it would save energy, both mine and the planet's, if I did laundry once every two weeks. The downside of this is that on laundry day I do a minimum of six big loads of wash, which leaves me little room for higher pursuits.

My generation of women did not consider housekeeping a worthwhile, let alone an interesting activity. We were post-June Cleaver and pre-Martha Stewart. We wanted to do impressive things—fight battles, break barriers, have careers. If there was laundry to be done it would get done in a rush, as we simultaneously ate breakfast and wrote an article. Better still, it would be done by our mate. We were into saving time and energy, freeing ourselves for the important stuff.

By their contrast with the aridity of academic life, certain domestic tasks did strike me as pleasant, even beautiful—making bread, for instance, and growing vegetables. But even as I was doing these things, my mind was on other matters—mostly classes and committees—and I had a nagging feeling that it was somehow inappropriate and unscholarly of me to enjoy any aspect of housekeeping.

Long after leaving campus, I am sorry to report that the nagging feeling is still with me. As I go about my business, be it something I enjoy—hanging the laundry out to dry—or dislike—putting the laundry away—I usually feel that I should be doing something else, that there is a better, more productive way of using my time. If I'm walking the dogs, I should be training them. If I'm reading, I should be writing. If I'm folding laundry, I should be exercising. It's an exhausting and depressing way to live.

Then the other day, quite by chance, I heard a Benedictine monk on the radio say the following: “That instinct, that sort of sacramental instinct to find something holy in everything, runs deep in us [Benedictines]. ...it's tended to make us want to do our best whether it's a humble task or...something more exalted, like a great work of art.”

Sacramental instinct...something holy in everything—the words kept tumbling around in my mind. Of course they brought up echoes of Buddhism—stay in the moment, be present in everything you do. Of course they reminded me that this attitude of reverent attention is the very foundation of aesthetics. But for some reason this time the words were still with me when I woke up the next morning.

For the last couple of days I've been walking around with a different conversation inside my head. I say to myself, “I am carefully washing these vegetables to put into the stock,” instead of “I should have already chopped these. They should be in the stock right now.” I say, “I am doing a good job of brushing the dogs' teeth,” instead of “Hurry up with that brushing. You should be clipping their nails.” It's kind of a forced conversation, and it certainly does not come spontaneously. But maybe someday it will.

For now, the petty tyrant that used to lurk inside my cranium has been replaced by a kindly Benedictine monk. But whereas the tyrant was self-supporting, the monk is going to need regular meals and quite a bit of TLC. I like my monk, and I hope he will stick around. For his supper tonight I will offer him the act of towel-folding, mindfully done.