She Loves to Iron

One of many memories of my mother, as her younger self, had me watching her prostrated before the ironing board with a spray bottle of a secret Argo and rosewater mix. She ironed everything. From intimate apparel to sheets, pillowcases, washcloths and towels, no scrap of cloth safe from the scorch of steel.

The image of my mother, brow glistening swaying over the ironing board, made me hate the idea of domesticity. "I will never marry a man who makes me iron his shorts" my sing-song lyric of disdain as I stomped through our apartment in gleaming red Buster Browns. Yet my mother seemed to enjoy ironing very much, she was calm, serene almost beatific as she went through the thankless process. At first I thought this the ultimate act of ecclesiastical servitude, and would swipe my slips and undershirts from her basket, as I did not want to be associated with the oppressor. My heart too young to comprehend a deeper truth.

On my sixth birthday, my grandmother demonstrated the family heirloom - a ten-pound cast iron monstrosity, and I was stunned to think this level of cruelty may be my birthright. Mustering up my little-girl temperament, I resisted all efforts to teach me technique; I purposely left cat faces in school shirts and handkerchiefs; wrinkles to this day, an ode to freedom of choice. My father thought me unruly and forbade me to touch his wares, as only mother's hand could be trusted to caress his prized Van Heusens. I was clueless to the proviso in the marital contract covering laundry, but so be it.

As I grew older I began to realize my mother's devotion to her craft as her solace, possibly her insolence and her freedom song. She a privileged girl from the village of Harlem grew up during the Depression. Her mother, the grande dame carried the guilt of uptown aristocracy having plenty, while most did not. Their wash, a secret glee, their own; and they savored the smell of freshly laundered cotton with dewy abandon.

Not pressed into domestic servitude, my mother continued her studies, traveled the world and lived the "carefree" life of a 1940's post-war colored girl, her penance, the everlasting pursuit of Negro perfection.

Her communion with the iron a sacrament; an expression of defiance, audacity, and rage all neatly tucked and folded in the armoire of forgotten dreams. Pink grosgrain bows and knife-edged pleats bearing silent testimony to her stature in the community, the ultimate act of class warfare in a world devoid of class.

I would like to believe my mother a superhero. Secretly battling a life of benign oppression and self-imposed theology, her fantasy rebellion fulfilled. At dawn, wife and mother, at dusk a free loving spirit, who during times of peril armed herself with implements of hot steel, and capes of old-school morality, vanquishing inequities real and imagined. Her infinite struggle with wrinkled white cotton a metaphor of what lay below 110th Street.

Protecting my heart, mind and soul she steamed strength, bravado and courage into the very fabric of my being. I take not her sacrifice for granted as I am she redux – her legacy of perfection my birthright and honor.