Domestic Bliss

“I fear oblivion,” states Augustus Waters in my new favorite book by John Green, The Fault in Our Stars. What I fear is meaninglessness. Last week after I washed a load of laundry and put it in the dryer, I discovered that our dear dryer wasn't drying. I could hear a whirling noise when I pushed the ON button, but the tumbler wasn't tumbling. Being gender-traditional as far as fixing mechanical things goes, I deferred to my husband Dan, who immediately guessed he would have to replace the belt. So when the weekend arrived and with a new belt secured, Dan started in on this current “home project.” Our weekends are often devoted to grocery shopping, errands and general puttering. In the middle of doing such activities I feel blissfully peaceful, but afterwards, I sometimes wonder where the time went.

The wet clothes in the washer were ripening, so during the week our neighbors were generous enough to let us use their dryer. The old fashioned custom of borrowing a cup of sugar comes to mind and this is, I believe, what builds closer ties and community. Knowing Dan's home projects inevitably take longer than expected, I turned to a bit of spring cleaning and then later worked the ground-cover clover into my raised beds. I also spent a ridiculous amount of time surfing John Green and his brother Hank's video/blog site: www.youtube.vlogbrothers.com. Besides being a teacher of adolescents, I am one of those over-sixty people who enjoys keeping a finger on the pulse of our youth, our future adult generation.

Sitting at the kitchen table, viewing my lap top screen, I feel a hum circulating through our house. It is the hum of simply being in the moment contentment. The light intermittently with the darkening rain flickers through our many windows, our aging dog Lacey breathes loudly lying on the living room rug and my adorable cat, Lissa, slumbers on the kitchen table near my keyboard. Then I hear the scraping and clanking of metal and the releasing of curse words coming from our “mud room.” Dan has the dryer away from its back wall and its parts strewn on the floor like a gutted animal. He is a very methodical handyman, researching each task with step-by-step instructions through the Internet, though often it requires several “takes” to get it right. And this becomes true for the dryer procedure.

I want to help, so I close out YouTube, grab the small brush and dustpan and crawl/squeeze behind the dryer to clean out the dust bunnies and wash the floor and wall grime . Dan has figured out what he has been doing wrong and I feel happily blessed to be by his side doing something useful. Most often when he is undertaking a “home project” I leave him alone to groan and grunt. But then there are these “magical” times when we work side by side and the repair puzzle all comes together as if it is meant to be and we are meant to be.

Home is where the heart is and my heart is my home. Lately, cleaning has become less of a chore for me and more of a purifying ritual. Dan struggles to stretch the belt, but finally gets it on just as I finish up my scrubbing. For the fun of it, after getting a cheap lunch out, we decide to peruse new washers and dryers. I add up the years and realize we bought our used washer twenty-eight years ago from a high school kid repairing washers on the side in his garage. And this is only the second used dryer we have had in as many years. We try not to be consumers but we have been slowly and steadily remaking our empty nest with new furniture, fixtures and drapes. Maybe it is time to purchase a new washer/dryer set for the mud room. But now that the dryer is fixed, we almost gleefully want to see how long it will last.

After oohing and aahing in the Maytag store, we head to our local Jerry's home improvement store. Don't ask me why, but I love roaming these nuts and bolts store aisles with Dan. I even love when we go to the outside yard for our project lumber. I know it's mundane, but clothes, garden or food shopping, looking, gathering construction materials, having lunch, dreaming, conversing are all tasks bringing me joy when I am with Dan.

What I realized that Saturday and have always known, is my relationship with Dan has never been trivial. He keeps my heart pounding loudly and no matter what we do together it turns out to be the most meaningful moments I could ever undertake with someone. We have had our obstacles; we have had our challenges. Over the years we have taken ourselves apart and put ourselves back together again; we have replaced belts; we have continued to fix the leaks. Our relationship hasn't always been blissful, but we have no desire for a newer model. Like our washer and dryer we joyfully want to see how long we will last. And with over thirty years in, I think we're going to make it another thirty at least.

© 2012