this is a new song called laundromatic. the tactile nature of going there, the act of washing and cleansing, the feeling of warm clothes and the smell of fresh laundry, I find comforting and soothing.
and transforming, particularly on the days that I am low: the city on hard days. riding my bike past so-called recreation shops where they sell mystery products with chems in them. sitting in the health center waiting room (it’s a good place but it can be scary).
one place I feel safe strangely is the laundromat. being away from immediate threats, simply feeling safe, is enough.
in group we talk about the importance of committing to rituals. this can include ceremonies and spiritual teachings, or not. a ritual can be as simple as running at a certain hour of the day in your favorite band t-shirt, baking bread on Saturday morning, or sipping tea while watching the sunrise. whatever moves you towards a better kind of mental or emotional state. we perform this ritual at the beginning of group where we lock arms and repeat a secret phrase together. we do it to bring our emotional states in alignment, and it works.
part of the reason for having a personal ritual is to make a safe place for the things we feel, good things and dark things, so that we don’t have to carry all of those feelings around with us everywhere. my songs are my special safe place. I guess doing laundry is a cleansing ritual.
Einstein said everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. “determined for the insect as well as the star,” he wrote. “we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.”
maybe there is a pattern, a ritual of life. I don’t know. God knows. I can’t go and ask God. but, God knows.
if it is all simply unpredictable noise after all, then I pray God gives me the humility to accept the chaos. and lets me keep going to the laundromat.
cookie nieves 
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