Speed Queen

Passing the time between races at this weekend's Nationals (Windham Mountain) led to close encounters with the local Tannersville Speed Queen dryers. There is a certain level of soothing captivation involved in allowing your presence to be sucked into the psychedelic tumble of moisture being expunged from clothing. Each time the circle in front of you rotates there is the faint hope that the near distinguishable blur of color and garment will complete a full rotation; but alas, the synthetic clump of spandex, socks, and four-fingered gloves that seem to wave as they drift round reaches the apex, and gravity pulls it into a plummet towards yet another rotation to the top. Perhaps this cyclical tumble of diversity, this whirlwind of colors, can be paralleled to our lives. Spiritually and mentally speaking, we, as human beings, are on a concurrent plane with the Speed Queens of the world. We have times in our lives, when things seem to be thrown into a spin, with varying degrees of control involved; different settings for heat and intensity come into play, and we find ourselves tossed about in this calescent amalgam of confusion and frustration. We make our way to the apogee of something just long enough to feel the loft of weightlessness, of understanding, and then without warning we are once again brought into the spin. Yet, when we are good and ready, when things have finally dried, we find that the whirlwind has come to a conclusion in its turning, and we are free to sort things out, just at the time we are meant to. The socks are matched and twisted into one another; the tangled garb is deciphered, and so are our lives. Although it is the case that things may get dirty again, which means the whirlwind shall return; its presence is brief and for the sake of the self, for it soon enough brings us to the point where everything stops—the heat dissipates as the door opens, and we realize we are surrounded by others just like ourselves, that we are all in this together and that somehow, someway, things will get sorted out.