In the aftermath of the Tableaux, I am doing laundry. The costumes for angels deserve as much. They faithfully garbed people posing as angels, which involves getting dirty. Not because actors are purposely rolling on the floor, or perspiring. It is just the way we humans experience daily life. 

 

It has been a pleasant and rhythmic process, carrying home a pile without hurting my back, heading to the basement to poke them in the washer, coming back later to transfer them to the dryer, remembering an hour later to bring them back up to the first floor. The costumes are refreshingly white, and seem relieved. They have been toting around the sweat and dirt for an indeterminate number of years, and now they can exhale in their own cleanliness. Then they get ferried back to the cathedral and hung in the basement, while I gather another arm full of garments, hoping for renewal. It is not necessary to finish it all in one day. Clothes wait their turn. 

 

It is a metaphor for life, really. Anyone who interacts with other humans gets dirty, not out of ill intent, but because our needs bump up against those of people around us. Ignoring the dirt does not pan out as a life strategy, but neither must we sterilize our intentions in a single day. 

 

There is a nagging resentment that I have been clinging to, or perhaps it was stuck on me. Today I intend to wiggle enough to loosen it. Being curious about the old pattern helps. Where did it arrive from? Am I ready to release it? 

 

It seems that just showing up with that kind of vulnerability goes a long way.