Literature and laundry

I'm staring at a periodic table of elements in these jeans, hoping a product named "Zout" will remove the clay and chlorophyll from the faded kneecaps.  Laundry is a constant reminder of how easily I can slip behind in all things domestic.  It piles quickly, six outfits at a time with accompanying linens, towels and outerwear.  As I'm pitching and sorting clothes into piles of graduating color, I try to imagine myself in character.  Perhaps I'm a domestic steward of a grand estate, no...  I prefer something more metaphorical, like the giving tree....but a person.  Surely, there exists a Victorian-era mother of sterling disposition and limitless charity, the very summation of all that is inexhaustibly selfless.  I'm mentally ticking through my mental files for such a maternal literary figure, and I'm drawing a blank.  Where are all in the mothers in literature?

Literature is chuck full of female protagonists.  They are determined and young, seeking redemption, purpose or love, and rarely is she packing children in a station wagon along the way to self-enlightenment.  The most famous of mothers in literature are more aptly described infamous:  Hamlet's Gertrude,  Madea (pre-Tyler Perry), or the absurd Mrs. Bennet.

On another, yet somewhat related point, literature loves orphans!  What's better than the abandoned or motherless child surviving neglect and want, and emerging triumphant in character?  Huck Finn, Anne (of Green Gables), Jane Eyre, Pip, Cosette, Oliver, Mowgli, Peter Pan, Bambi....

Now, I'm pulling the arms and legs of dirty clothes right-side out so they can churn in the murky wash water more effectively, and as I'm popping open sock balls, a low groan in the manner of modern-day mother, Marge Simpson, rumbles from my throat.  I might have a clue why all the mothers of literature are missing...

It's one of those classic:  "as if it wasn't bad enough..."
As if it wasn't bad enough washing, drying, folding and putting away clothes for five other people, besides myself, they have to pull their clothes off like iron-on transfers, peeling them inside-out, so that I have to unfold them for washing.
As if it wasn't bad enough doing dishes, including the stainless-steel pan of scrambled eggs, the soggy tea bags are still floating, bloated and cold in their respective mugs, and the dishwasher is already too full to accommodate the stack in the sink.
As if it wasn't bad enough to scrub the scum ring from the kids bathtub, I must disinfect every matchbox car, Barbie and plastic replicas of the entire Jurassic time period scattered and scummy from the underwater dino-demolitian-derby-fashion-show (who am I kidding...is there ANY Barbie on the planet with clothes on?  Couldn't be a fashion show as much as just a general mosh pit).
As if it wasn't bad enough taking out the trash, the liner has slipped below the towering peak of garbage, and I must fish for it while banana peels and Chinese take-out containers tumble to the floor.

I wonder if mothers aren't Pulitzer Prize material because, although we are ever-present, we exist in the background.  Truth be told, we are a supporting role.  Perhaps we are nothing more than the pages in our children's lives, the basis on which their tale is told.  Eventually, they will have a family of their own and that will be their story, not ours.

In the meantime, as I jam one too many sweaters into my son's dresser drawer, I have high hopes for my leading young ladies and gentlemen.  Hopefully, I won't have to abandon them or die a tragic death for them to build character and forge a journey of epic proportions.  I would like to think that with my influence, and not without, my daughters will daydream and feel the world with all their senses like Anne and possess the steely, principled strength of  Jane.  And, maybe my sons will be have the virtue of Oliver and discover life's lessons steadily, albeit at times naively, as did Pip.

I may not inspire a literary documentation of my life doing this laundry, but I would like to think whatever characters my children become, a little piece was inspired by this washing, drying and folding mom.