Crumpled Things

'This is the dream of men, to straighten crumpled things.''
Colum McCann, Dancer

This beautiful quote pretty much sums up my current state of existential angst. I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time ironing things. Sheets, pillow cases, dresses get tangled in the iron's cord or twisted beneath the metal plate that I suppose is meant as a resting place for the purified water-filled pressing machine.  Mom never taught me how to press things, probably because mom never learned how to do it herself. Things in our house were always wrinkled.

Just as my life now is wrinkled. Not my face, not those bits one would expect to start folding in on themselves on a woman of a certain age. By all accounts I look just fine, younger than I once was, older than I'll be. A gnawing lack of the basics is what ails me; Virginia's essential room of one's own, the quiet corner for the typewriter stand and bowl of fleshy fruit, and a place for all my shoes and the girlie potions that press and plump the creases from my brow.

I am grateful for the German steam iron in my ex-husband's front closet. Brand name Rowenta. Piles of well-pressed 400-thread-count sheets and pillow case allow me the illusion of order. And the promise of future comfort.

This all has something to do with dancing – the liberation that graceful movement offers, another illusion, or maybe allusion? I'll take it. Then I will dance. Maybe.

Dancing alone is still dancing.