Memory of a Laundromat

I think being without my washer and dryer for so long had me thinking I was going to have to go to a Laundromat. Luckily, that was solved and I’ve managed more loads of laundry yesterday evening while I was writing. What the thinking about going to the Laundromat did was also make me think of a scene I had written on my previous book. That would be the one I ended up pulling and stopped writing after approximately 70 or so full pages. I had a moment (another one or one of many) where I read random pieces and decided all was awful and stopped writing it.

But I had written a scene in a Laundromat and I went back and pulled my hardcopy. I was curious about it so I found it and read that part. My memory of the scene in the Laundromat was how hot I thought I had portrayed it…

Lea and I were slumped in uncomfortable, plastic chairs. Lea was waving a folded newspaper at her face to stir up any air that might be in this god-forsaken Laundromat, as she called it. She had insisted on coming with me. She had wanted to go the gym but I had told her I needed to get this done tonight and didn’t plan on changing my mind. She wanted to know why I had been avoiding her. I hadn’t been avoiding her. Not this time, I just wanted to get this laundry out of the way before the weekend.
“How can you stand this heat,” she gasped, waving the newspaper harder.
“It’s really not that bad, Lea, and I said you didn’t have to come.”
“It IS really that bad, why don’t you sweat!” she wanted to know.
“I DO sweat, you’ve seen me sweat. What are you talking about? I just tolerate it more than most.”
“How do you do it?” She stopped waving the newspaper. She put it her hands between her knees as she leaned forward and turned her head toward me.
I shrugged, “I don’t know. I guess because I always preferred to be outside when I was a kid.”
She sat up and turned more toward me holding the newspaper in one hand. “So you’re parents let you go outside all the time?” she asked.
I lifted just my eyes to look at her. “I said I preferred to be outside.”
She sat straight up and laid the newspaper across her knees turning as far to face me as the bolted plastic chairs would allow. “So they didn’t mind you being out of doors.”
“Who didn’t mind?”
“Your Dad and Mom.”
“They didn’t care.”

I went on and read more and I ending up reading a good portion of maybe 10-15 pages or so of the story. I didn’t remember the actual words and how I maneuvered them. I didn’t remember how I had placed the characters in instances and how I had them work through those instances. They were there and likable and not flat. I can say I don’t remember making them that way. I don’t remember how I came up with some of the things they did and how I wove it together. Lea was originally an unplanned character. She walked into a scene early on almost without my knowledge and became fun to write. She wasn’t the main character and I didn’t always know what she would come up with but it was always fun.

And it turns out, not so bad either. At least that’s my thinking now, wait and it might change again. I know and have known I will go back and finish this story but not just yet. I am planning on going forward with the one I’ve started recently and finish it even if it’s just terrible. I am still going to finish it. And maybe by letting loose of my white knuckled fists a bit, it won’t be such a trauma.

Funny that - Tessa’s Trauma.

TT