My mother gave me a bit of wisdom one time when she was teaching me to iron. Ironing was a weekly chore in the days when everything you wore needed to be ironed, and I was probably eight or so when my mother decided I could learn to help.
I started with my Dad's white handkerchiefs, and was doing my best to make them perfect, when my mother suggested that I hurry things up a bit. I told her, "If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing well."
"That's not true", she replied. "There are a lot of things in life worth doing whether you do them well or not. Some things are only worth a little bit of effort, and ironing handkerchiefs is one of them."
My mother also used to say, "All cats are grey in the dark." I never asked her how she knew.
This poem by Tess Gallagher always reminds me of my mother.
I Stop Writing the Poem
to fold the clothes. No matter who lives
or who dies, I’m still a woman.
I’ll always have plenty to do.
I bring the arms of his shirt
together. Nothing can stop
our tenderness. I’ll get back
to the poem. I’ll get back to being
a woman. But for now
there’s a shirt, a giant shirt
in my hands, and somewhere a small girl
standing next to her mother
watching to see how it’s done.
