It’s almost as if I was prepared for this breathtaking pause.
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Once past the gate, I lit a cigarette and noticed that my hand was trembling.
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Laundry Day in London

Remembering gentler times when we weren’t so wary of others and had more trust in the kindness of strangers,   I think about laundry day in London.

In the early 1970s my husband Danny had the chance to work in that wonderful city for a year and we grabbed it.  I took a leave of absence from my teaching job,  we sublet our apartment,  and packed our raincoats and umbrellas.   We couldn’t take our cat unless we first quarantined him for six months,  so instead we boarded him with my mother-in-law.

We rented a lovely flat with a garden off the Kings Road in Chelsea,  and so began our London sojourn.  (See Inks and Derek: Art and the Cricket Scores,  Kinky Boots, and  Valentine’s Day in Foggytown)

To keep me busy while Danny was at work,  I decided to take some courses and discovered a wonderful school called City Lit on fabled Drury Lane that offered adult education classes.  I signed up for Survey of British Lit,  History Tours of London,  and in an attempt to improve my culinary skills – a cooking course.   (See Intro to Cookery)

My classes met three mornings a week and I happily found much else to do in Londontown to fill the rest of my time.  Our flat had no washer & dryer,  so once a week I took our laundry to Sketchley’s Cleaners on the Kings Road.  There was a stop in front of Sketchley’s for the bus that took me to Drury Lane,  so it made sense to drop the laundry on a morning I had a class and then hop on the bus.

But the first time I carried my laundry bag to the cleaners at that early hour,  I discovered they weren’t open yet.  I didn’t have time to run back home and still get to class on time,  and the other option was taking my dirty laundry on the bus with me to school.

I stood on the sidewalk pondering what to do when a chap approached,  also carrying a bulging laundry bag.

”I’m afraid they’re still closed.” ,  I told him.

”I know Luv”,   he said,  “just leave it here,  they’ll collect it when they come to open up.”

And so I left my laundry bag on Sketchley’s doorstep next to his.

“No one back in New York would believe this!”,  I said to myself as I got on the bus.

 

– Dana Susan Lehrman