Flip, Splash, Repeat.

 No one on vacation posts pictures of themselves washing clothes from some hotel.  We always get the food porn, beachside locales and exotic lighting pictures that make us swoon with envy.  But the longer you're gone, the higher the pile of laundry gets.  It's inevitable.  I think we wear even more clothes during vacation too, as if the change of wardrobe reminds us to take another photo with that we-have-fun-in-this-outfit smile.

My family has accumulated quite a pile of laundry on this trip to Texas.  We even bought new clothes, which meant even more laundry because the one thing about new clothes is you just have to wear them.  I like the smell of a new shirt, the itchiness of the fabric.  My wife likes to wash hers first.  My mom's plumbing has had some issues in the last few years, which makes it harder to use the washer at her house.  So, we've been "slumming" it with our trips to the Washateria these last few weeks.  Each time, it has unloaded a levy-busting amount of ideas, thoughts, daydreams and inner conversations.

I'm no stranger to doing my laundry at a self-serve.  I never knew anything else growing up in apartment complexes and the name "washateria" went along with all the other tex-mex coined places I visited.  We ate lunch in a "cafeteria," and got our bread from a "panaderia", tacos from a "taqueria" so of course the laundry was done in a "washateria." 

From the time I was begrudgingly accompanying my mom to one or having to use one out of necessity when I was older, all washaterias are pretty much the same in design.  One of the places I remember quite often was located on Aldine Mail Route.  It sat between a convenient store and a video rental.  Besides the locale, it wasn't much different.  Each washateria has a small arcade room or area.  Typcially it's Mrs. Pac-Man (almost always with the speed button so you could outrun the ghosts) or Galaga.  I preferred the star-war sounds of Tempest, but this place had an old Tron arcade game, which you probably couldn't even find anymore.

There's always a soap/fabric softener dispenser with some name like, "Soap Station", where you place a few quarters and out pops enough liquid detergent for 2 loads.  There were coin machines that would break nothing higher than a 20 dollar bill (who gets a 50 broken into quarters anyway?) but that were as sensitive as motion detector alarms in the Pentagon.  Somewhere someone is uncrinkling the dollar bills from my mom's purse from the 80's.  Every washateria provides dry cleaning too, so there's someone on staff to change bills or to sell small bags of fritos and lollipops.

Perhaps it was the lure of the leftover coins I fished from the quarter roll to play games, or the feeling of reaching into an industrial sized dryer to pull out your clothes, but it was always this place where the desperate come to live.  And believe me, we weren't in a "desperate" zone.  Not having a washer in Houston was not something that placed us on some poverty list.  It just never seemed like anyone else at the washateria wanted to be there.  Maybe it was the women I saw in too-big t-shirts (what is it with some women that perpetually have blouses or shirts that when they bend over, expose their breasts?) or the barefoot children who were always running or crying or eating candy with red kool-aid stained hands.  Going to the wash meant no babysitter was ever available, and the more kids you had, the louder they were, automatically meant you were destined for an afternoon doing laundry.

And in each washateria, the atmosphere feels humid and tepid.  It's as if the air conditioner is losing an ongoing battle with the dryers.  There's a smell of bleach and water dripping from unseen pipes.  The floor never looked waxed (with the amount of foot traffic in those places, did anyone ever consider another color other than white?). 

The washateria on mail route was the place I would see a girl my age from time to time.  Once, a girl from high school was there with her mom.  Her hair was in a ponytail and without her makeup or Rocky Mountain Jeans I could see her freckles and they way she would look at home on a typical Saturday afternoon.  It became a place for my first fantasies and the only place I had the courage to speak to a girl I always saw at school.

Later, when my wife and I moved to Zanesville, the washaterias were called Laundromats.  This place had a table to comfortably read a book from which was different from the norm. I used to sneak looks at the owner's daughter, probably still in her high school years, but pretty enough in that Ohio-country-girl way that make men wish they were older.

Typically, every washateria I had ever been always have a row of seats that were bolted to the ground, always yellow and slightly contoured so that it felt like you were sitting in a cereal bowl.  I'm not sure why the chairs in these places are so secure, as if a roving band of marauders came through the city, stealing chairs from businesses. 

So all these memories and emotions came flooding back on these trips to the washateria.  Coming home to Houston does that already.  Is that the same road where you.....  Wasn't that the place where.....  Remember the place where you....  It's as if each road, freeway and destination is attempt to exorcise some past sin.  I'm sitting there with my wife and my kids begin begging for quarters to play games, they want snacks, they are asking questions about when we are going home.  Later my little girl is pushing around the laundry carts like she's a pro.  Her days of future laundry have yet to be written.

There's a story somewhere in the tumblings.  The calcium deposits on most of the larger machines have barnacled themselves around the place where liquid detergent is deposited.  The second time we went washing, the place was dirtier, used.  The Asian couple who owned the place (I have a theory that there are classrooms in American embassies somewhere who train future Asian Americans on how to properly run a nail salon, a dry cleaner or a washateria business) followed us around with a broom and told us which machines were out of order.  We had clothes all over the place.  My wife didn't even want to sit in any of the chairs, as if something would stick, like stepping in gum.  I read a fifth grade mystery novel while the machine squealed, hissed and rumbled. 

I have a few days left on vacation here in Houston.  It has been a whirlwind of hugs from relatives and food.  Too much food.  There's been elephants in the room during some of the get-togethers, and like the little Asian lady at the washateria, I want to wispy up beside (wearing flip flops and sliding them along the floor.  What's the sound for that?  Wispy, right?) them sweep up the bitterness, tell them what machines to use to get their lives in order.  Other times it's been rewarding.  When the little cousins are playing together I get a view of what my life was like when I was younger, when play meant everything, when the attitudes of the adults simply had no regard to what we were doing in the moment.  And I see glimpses of the past.  My cousin Christian, all of five years old and full of determination, plays and sounds like my uncle Jesse.  "Christian, can you flip off the diving board?" 

I don't know.  Let's see.

And then flip, splash, repeat. 

My son has been different here too.  We did not bring his medication with us to Texas, an accident on my part, thus it's allowed him to have an appetite, be in his element with the loudness, the spontaneity of living on vacation.  My uncle wants him the rest of the summer, and there's part of me that thinks my son will call me one night, "Dad, I'm staying in Houston.  Send my games.  I'll see you next summer."  We all went to a water park this past weekend and Cruz, my son, was momentarily missing.  My cousins all went out en masse, found him sitting next to a lifeguard, no panic.

I wish I could tether myself to those feelings.  The confidence of Christian, the calm fortitude of my son.  This trip is therapeutic.  My sister says that we all need to face ourselves, our pasts, from time to time.  This goes against some of the advice I get from bucks.  Stop fishing for old sin, let go of your past.  Inevitably, I do fish.  My sister didn't mean, come back and remind yourself of your past sin.  If anything, it's a reminder of how far I've come.  The challenge is getting to the next place, standing on solid ground no matter where home is located geographically. 

I'm excited to get our older daughter from her training in Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri as we swing back to Ohio.  Can that life be accomplished?

I don't know.  Let's see.

Flip, splash, repeat. 

The Imprints of Grease

Imagine if you will, a boy helping his father in the garage on a Sunday afternoon.  A boy young enough to be interested in the wonderment of a car engine, the bulkiness of the chrome and how the alien wheels and fans merge into one seamless system.  A tool box sits beside dad, the grease prints of work dull the metal shine.  The boy watches as the tools twist and tighten.  He doesn't know the name of them but he understands the general idea.  Sometimes the tools jump from his father’s hand which elicits curses while the metallic shout reverberates in the garage.

Years later, the boy is now a young man.  He still doesn't know the names of all the tools in the box, but he knows their function.  He knows which ones are for electrical purposes, which ones loosen bolts.  The engine itself still remains a mystery.  Liquids are topped off but the squeals and murmurs of the engine provide little clues of the diagnosis.  To replace engine parts are like organ transplants.  There’s a distrust once something new enters the body.

Now as an adult, the man has grown and sought his own knowledge.  There’s a class providing the man is taking where he learns the intricacies of the engine.  There are names for every tool in the instruction manual.  The squeals and murmurs are listed in alphabetical order in the troubleshooting index guide.  The imprints of grease that his father passed down to him are no longer a mystery.  Now the man can share his knowledge with his son.  The passing of chrome tools from one palm to another.

This story, in various forms and details, has been like my Emmaus walk.  While you may find out about the walk here, and my initial feelings when I was a pilgrim, I've been thankful to have been called back to serve as an assistant table leader, table leader and assistant lay director. 

Christmas mornings mean so much more to me as a father.  There’s a preparation involved.  The shopping, the late night wrapping sessions that my back doesn't always agree with.  As a child we awoke to the mystery and build-up of seeing presents under the tree.  Later as a young man, the gifts became more meaningful, the amount of gifts lessened.  There’s a preparation involved before each walk—8 meetings on Thursdays where a group of men pray, preview talks and hash out the logistics of the weekend.  There’s a similar energy to being this kind of parent.  Through all the missed keys of Amazing Grace (despite the joy of God in our hearts, on this particular walk the Holy Spirit had not yet quite gifted us with a singing voice) and meetings that ran late, the gift of grace was being tucked away, wrapped, only to be unveiled on a specific time.

Serving is also a humbling experience.  I remember thinking there was no way I was going to be able to not have the attention focused on myself.  I’m the loud guy in the room.  God had something else in mind, however.  I was grouped with a table leader who was my opposite, a man of few words.  I've been a table leader twice, which upon the responsibilities of being an unspoken leader, also comes with speaking in front of the group.  The jitters and nervousness were reminders that I could not do this on my own strength.  Each talk, “The Priesthood of all Believers” and “Changing Our World,” was a learning experience.  Each book I was reading at the time—God’s Politics by Jim Wallis (a little bit more progressive than I had realized at the time) and Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas—provided a framework for the message I was to deliver.  More importantly, God placed specific pilgrims at my table to challenge my judgments, perceptions and hang-ups. 

I didn't understand why God had placed THAT particular guy at my table.  The introvert, the young kid who loved to eat his lasagna between two pieces of garlic toast, the piano player who struggled with sexual sin so much that it seemed like his Bible kept flipping open to every specific verse that pierced his heart. 

And while I’m serving, God is continually pruning my life.  I leave burdens each time I serve, and my yoke feels a little bit lighter.  While on my first walk I asked the Lord to enter my heart, each walk since then gives me a chance to chisel away the doubt and fear that creeps in and tries to destroy.  Sometimes as Christians we look upon our hearts and see the imprints of grease we've leveled upon ourselves.  We fish for the same sins or a familiar phrase from our family—our biggest wounds always involve the family ion one way or another, don’t they?—unravels our spirit. 

But God is faithful.  This last walk I gave the “Christian Action” talk—helped by books “The Art of Neighboring,” “Fight,” and “The Sleeping Giant”—and again I was blessed with the nervousness that comes with public speaking.  I never feel comfortable in a suit, but on days such as these it becomes a moot point.  I once wore someone else’s shoes on accident my very first time speaking, and it’s true that I’m stepping into the shoes of other great Christian men before me.  Ones who held on to that small wooden cross and stood at the same podium, driven by the words of the Holy Spirit.  The symbolic baton passing has no fingerprints but those of the maker.  They are His words anyway, His pilgrims and His presence.  Every time someone says “yes” to Him is like Christmas morning on steroids.  He gets to see us open that gift of grace, wide eyed and childlike.  Welcome home.  Welcome home.  

De Colores.