The Keyhole in the Laundromat

Who knows why early childhood memories broadside us at completely random moments? Who knows what jostles the small pocket that houses them just before the minute details of light, color and texture spill out and reconstruct themselves before our mind’s eye?

Today, I was sending an e-mail out at work (something about information technology and outsourcing) and without a moment’s notice, I was six years old at the Laundromat on Main Street , peeping through a keyhole into the apartment in the rear of the store. I have no idea the last time this memory surfaced or, honestly, if it ever has since then, but the emotional clarity that accompanied it was surprisingly sharp.

The Laundromat was in Almena, Wisconsin, population 456. It is where I was born and where I would spend the weekend with my dad after my parents were divorced. My dad didn’t have a washing machine, owing to the fact that he had no running water in his dilapidated home. So, every now and then, we would drive the block and a half up Main Street, past the bar, the post office, and the “supper club” (In those days I viewed this as the fancy place to eat, but if I were to see photos of it today, I would probably shudder at the sight.) to the Laundromat.

While waiting for the clothes to finish, surely I got bored and I think my dad even left me alone once in a while when he went to retrieve his mail from a post office box. I would wander towards a door set in the center of the rear wall, tucked back in a small alcove between soap dispensing machines and hard plastic chairs. In my memory, it’s a thick, glass door with curtains on the reverse side. This is where the elderly owners of the Laundromat lived, although I don’t remember ever actually seeing them. I would get my eye right up to the keyhole – the old-fashioned kind that afforded the peeper a moderately decent view – and I would look inside. What I remember most is the light – filtered and dusty – as if the shades were permanently closed. I remember faded greens and a hint of mauve. I remember heavily textured synthetic fabrics. It was like a museum. A room of steadfast relics, void of movement with an almost dollhouse-like quality. A place very unlike my father’s house.

I think of what I would do as a parent if I found my child peeping into someone’s home through the keyhole. I imagine I would tell them to stop immediately and teach them a lesson about personal privacy. That, to me, seems appropriate. But, how could I ever know what I was robbing them of in doing this? How could I know that I was dispossessing them of a mysterious, magical flashback twenty years down the road on a day when they need it most.

It’s amazing to ponder this collection of moments. The keyhole at the Laundromat segues into playing 301 with my dad at the bar next door, drinking Shirley Temples and playing Rosanne Cash’s Tennessee Flat Top Box over and over again on the jukebox. These images, however convoluted or gussied up they’ve become over time, are our histories and when they pop up and give us a jolt like mine did this morning, I know it’s a signal that the time has come for me to tell that part of my story, lest I let it slip away and it chooses not to return to me again in this lifetime. How many moments have already done this? How many memories will not return again before our last day on earth? A great many, I suppose. There’s only room for so many thoughts in our heads. But, as long as they choose to surprise me here and there, root me, and make me grateful for the path I have traveled, then I will honor them by putting the words, as best I can, down on paper.

Here's to telling your story.