Running Through Cycles

There has to be a faster way to wash and dry my clothes than leaving them to dry on a hanger overnight, so I look up the closest laundromat—the storm isn’t supposed to start for another hour—I’ll be there and back before the typhoon is here. There is no one to give polite nods to, the cafe this laundromat is connected to is closed, so the staff are gone. There are several free washers, so I stuff my clothes in the closest one to the entrance. I put my change in the slot and lower myself to sit on one of the wooden stools that are too close to the floor, so my legs come up in an odd way.

Minutes later, the rain is crashing, the wind is howling, and my phone starts blaring with a TCCOR 2 typhoon warning. I have no choice but to stay inside.

The circling of my clothes against the inner walls of the washer overlaps with the beats of another washer and one dryer, like galloping horses.

From my stool, I can see bright colors and sporty material in the only running dryer. I pick myself up and watch the clothes toppling inside. I decide these clothes belong to a young woman who goes on runs in her free time, listening to the way her shoes hit the pavement as she keeps her breath on tempo and lets herself forget about the day she had. The sun sets without her realizing and by the time she gets home, she's like a whole new person.

The storm was probably a relief for her, since it happened to come on the day she needed to wash her running clothes. Maybe she loaded them and went to run an errand, thinking she could get so much done. By the time the typhoon was over, her clothes would be ready for her run the next day and it’d be as if she hadn’t had to wait for her clothes at all.

Maybe now that the storm's come and she can't leave the house, she's not sure what to do with herself. She's not sure who she is when she's sitting at home letting the mass of her body sink further into her bed or couch. She's not sure how to face her accumulated demons from the day without a long run, so she's forced to have dinner with them instead. Even if she were living with a person, the demons still whisper about what's been said during the day and finger through a file of memories, pointing at the moments she can't stand thinking about. What she said at work when her coworker invited her out to dinner, the look on the coworker's face when she declined, or the awareness that she's going to have to ask her roommate to repeat what they're saying because her mind drifted to all the things they’re not talking about.

I'm not sure what to do with myself now that I'm trapped here without my schoolwork or my resume to tweak again.

The low beep of the dryer calls me back. The clothes settle and I back away, expecting the owner to appear with a disgusted look on her face. But after a few minutes, no one's come and of course no one would want to come back here with the typhoon blowing rain sideways. I fold them before they can wrinkle. As my hands find the shoulders of shirts and tuck the sleeves to the center, I try not to look too closely at anything, the way I assume a mailman avoids memorizing the names of people that live at various addresses. It seems too intimate, being one of the few people able to handle this woman’s clothes the way a mother or a partner would. So I focus on neat piles instead, stacking tank tops with tank tops, and leggings with yoga pants, though I’m not sure if she would care about the difference, and I leave undergarments in a pile. I found a nice sleeveless blouse, the kind you wear because you want people to see you in it. To see how it shapes your body in the way you like it. I'm now glad I started doing this runner’s laundry.

When I'm done folding the clothes of Runner, I write a note to apologize for doing it for them and letting her know I touched nothing too personal.

When there’s nothing else to fold, I realized the washer of someone else’s clothes is almost finished, clothes that will sit in a damp washer and develop a smell that is worse than wrinkled tops, because it will seep into the fibers.

So when the washer beeps, I heave the sopping wet clothes into a dryer and exchange more change from the machine. It feels like it weighs about 20kg, so it's a bit pricey, but worth it.

I watch as the dryer rocks the clothes back and forth.

While the clothes are drenched, I can tell by the textures that there are white collared shirts, plaid shirts, and corduroy pants. They look like men's clothing, though who am I to say they look more like men's based on the color alone. Right now the clothes are formless, being twirled in circles. It almost looks like they're having fun on their favorite carnival ride with the way they flap and flutter about inside like they never want the ride to end. Maybe they know the ride will end eventually and are thankful to have this moment. Yes, this is what they are.

Maybe their owner is the same way, in a struggle between wanting moments like this to last forever and trying to accept that they will end. It must be hard to enjoy such moments when one leg is always just outside of it.

Maybe that's why he didn't separate his white collared shirts from everything else. Of all the things he worries about, clothes are the lowest on the list. Maybe he tried to squeeze in a hangout with someone who also has a job and they both never have the time to hang out these days. Every now and again, I imagine they’d be reminded of one another and realize over and over again how much they missed one another’s company. Maybe they are both like these clothes, knowing the moment is wonderful, that it’s nice to be by one another’s side again, but they each know the world is keeping them apart, asking them to fulfill different needs. In this dryer the moment is wonderful, but they can’t let it be touched by real things sitting between them, like what work needs to get done tonight or what people they have to see tomorrow. They can’t question what their friendship really is, or if it'll even last. They might as well let the dryer twirl them around and only focus on this.

When I fold these clothes, I do the same thing to Plaid's, that's what I'll call him, as I did to Runner’s.

I fold his clothes and leave a note that says the same thing.

I switch my washed clothes to the dryer and am fascinated to see how long it takes for it all to go from wet clothes, heavy and treading with water, to airy fabric tumbling in a contained breeze. I hadn’t fully realized this was happening with Plaid's. But it takes time. And as I sit there looking for that change, I realize it's not going to be instant and instead decide that when I'm sitting here, one person in a room of washers and dryers, these can be anyone's clothes.

I sat up and went back to my stool where I looked at Runner's clothes and tried to imagine the kind of person who could have these clothes. There are skirts and knee length socks. Maybe someone would think these are my everyday clothes and not special occasion clothes. And that person would see me as the kind of person to wear skirts because she knew her body looked good in them and she felt as good as they made her feel. She walks down the halls of her university knowing who she is with strong strides of someone who's gone her whole university life taking things in stride and adding them to her list of things that made her the person she is.

But this person really doesn't know where she wants to go after college. She's starting to think where she ends up would be a lot like this place. Somewhere she can enjoy helping people who aren't sure about how to work the laundromat and people that aren't here because they can’t be, much like Runner and Plaid. She can enjoy what she does for others and step away from herself every now and again imagining the lives of the people she helps, maybe even talk to one of these people.

Maybe working here would be nice. Somewhere completely removed from everyone else's working days in offices and behind computers. Instead she can sit here during the day and serve coffee in the cafe area, work on the laundromat side with whatever needs taking care of and prepare for the night. Maybe I wouldn't even leave after I close the cafe side and clock out. Maybe I would make myself a hot cocoa and sit in the laundromat until I got tired, helping the kind of people who aren't able to come back and move their clothes from the washer to the dryer and any lost souls that wander in here expecting to be trapped would be welcomed instead.

The storm hasn’t calmed down, so I lay back in my stool against the wall and listen to the dryer throwing my clothes in a continuous cycle and continue to imagine the girl with nice skirts and knee length socks.