There is a washing machine tub in our dining room. It is an anomaly, plunked there while my son waits for a part to arrive by mail in order to reinstall it in our apartment. A new renter has moved in, and it seemed like a good time to fix the leak.
Cleaning clothes can still happen using the large washer in the basement. The image of heading down there reminds me of the women in the movie Ever After, who labored over huge, soapy vats for the royal family.
Some people have their favorite lines from such movies. "As you wish," is well known from Princess Bride, as is "Anybody want a peanut?" My own best loved line happens when Danielle, who is Cinderella in this version of the story, speaks of the step mother who has done everything possible to steal her joy.
"She was misinformed."
The circumstances are that her step mother has spread rumors about Danielle, in a vicious attempt to hurt her. And yet Danielle responds with grace so fluid there is not a trace of contempt. Rather than calling her out for lies, she explains that the mistruths are born of misinformation.
The words come to me often these days, as I ache to understand the position of people who continue to make allowances for a cruel administration. As travesties pile on top of travesties, the weight bears down like four years of dirty clothes. I am lost as to how to make sense of people's unwavering allegiance.
"She was misinformed."
Of course the possibility exists that I am the one who is misinformed. Perhaps the egregious events I have read and prayed and wept about are all fabricated.
If it turns out that that is the case I will find a washing machine tub, the biggest ever made, and bake a humble pie so large it will take a month to eat it. I will dance with abandon to learn that all the undoings of our democracy were imagined, and that thousands of brown eyed babies have not woken up for four hundred mornings with wet cheeks, having forgotten the cadence of their mama's voice.
