Stillness Between Spirals
A Reflection at the Queen
At a roadside laundromat in Loch Sport, I found a portal.
Not in the lake or the landscape, though both were there, glistening holding me in between.
But in the hum of an old dryer named Queen.
The boys were at the beach, swimming and laughing, making more washing for me.
I was folding and waiting and watching the machine turn, load after load.
She was old-school. A red-lettered “Speed Queen” etched above the circular window.
But to me, she was more than a machine.
She was a place of initiation.
I sat before her, legs tucked up, resting, reflected in the glass.
Not spinning. Not striving...just still.
Between what had been
and what might now become.
In this space, something sacred happened:
I crowned myself.
Not with glory, not with gold, but with acceptance.
With self-love.
With gentleness for the one I am
the one who has walked through fire and fog. Navigating life in these times is quite something!
There were no witnesses.
No audience.
Only the hum of the Queen,
and the quiet yes of my own heart.
There had been too many years of asking for permission.
Too many loops, inside institutions, inside longings, inside old selves.
But here, with each load of clothes and emotion, I began to wash it all away.
This was cleansing.
Not performative. Not pretty. But real.
A moment in which I saw myself clearly,
not through the gaze of lovers, funders, or followers....
but through the reflection of a spinning door
in a laundromat
with a name that whispered,
“You don’t have to wait to be chosen.
You already are.”
Loch Sport was a bit of a family pilgrimage.
Visiting a place my grandma found in 1975 - 50 years ago! Because there was a grass tree that tickled her fancy.
There was threshold between my past spiral and the next.
A place of soft power, folded clothes, and small holy tasks.
Ah, the Queen....she spun the old stories out of me.
Until I was still enough
to begin again.
Con Viv
