Ironing Vintage Handkerchiefs
The Oxi Clean was melting very well in my kitchen sink under the hot water that was flowing from my builder’s grade condo sink faucet. Never a really vibrant stream, but good enough. My big deal right now in life is rescuing vintage embroidered handkerchiefs from Goodwill bins, yard sales, garage sales, and estate sales. Handkerchiefs with lace, embroidered flowers, printed ballerinas, art deco, and painstakingly placed initials in cotton corners surround me. It is my job to bring them back to beauty.
As recommended, I soaked them all, twenty-four of them, for two hours in my sink while my whining cats wended around my ankles begging me to finish so they could once again drink from the drips from the faucet. Patience, I instructed them, have some patience. Beauty takes time and Oxi.
After my timer went off, I took out the stopper of my sink and placed my hand over the disposal entrance. I did not want to lose one along with the remnants of yesterday’s meals. Let’s face it, they aren’t really meals when you are single, they are bits and bites.
Each handkerchief was baptized under cold water and then gently squeezed between my fingers under running water. They are so delicate and old and require a gentle touch. Many of them are as old as me, 50+, and require much more gentle care than I had received from not-so-gentle hands and fingers.
After they were all rinsed, I placed them in a big mesh bag and put them on the damp dry setting in my dryer for 5 minutes at a time until they were dry.
Each crumpled ball of needlepoint and see-through cotton was hung and stretched between the plastic clips on an old plastic store hanger with the mocking size 2X label still on the hanger. I decided to steam them until they were flat and perfect. My sister had recommended a steamer to me that you plugged in and filled with water and as the steam started to pour out of the nozzle I approached each handkerchief with fear and trepidation- they have lasted this long- I did not want to be the one to put them in the landfill grave.
The first one that I steamed had lace that was curled around the edges. As the steam began to uncurl the edges, a memory began to unfurl and uncrumple in my brain.
The memory was of me ironing my white uniform blouse the night before school at my Baptist school in Cincinnati, Ohio. The school allowed us to have lace collars attached to our uniform as long as they were white. This collar was beautiful to me because it had some femininity to it and was different. Each night I would iron my school blouses and place crisp creases on the shoulders as my nightly ritual.
My mom had one of those ironing boards that made a loud sound when you opened it up. After it groaned open and locked into place with a loud snap, I hooked up the iron and when it became hot I placed my blouse over the edge. The lace began to straighten as I ironed it out. I felt the steam on my face. I wanted to look nice at my fundamentalist school and be the epitome of girlishness, I wanted to look virginal and godly- those two words went together in my religion. When the iron reached the armpits of the shirt my true nature permeated my nostrils- my own sweat. The pits of every white shirt were yellow and stiff. My mom often remarked how she had to throw away my shirts because she could not get the yellow out.
The sweat had a sweet odor which now as an adult I have associated with the smell of uncertainty and fear. The fear is what I imagine an animal feels when is trapped and its smell is emitted when a predator is near. In my mind, as I continue to steam the lace of my handkerchief, I come to the realization that I had predators as a teenage girl; every female has predators.
My predators were sometimes a boy, sometimes my burgeoning sexuality that needed to be ironed out of me, the predator of a God that can kill you at will, the predator of a father who could not shake his fundamentalist cult and chased away normalcy and stability at every turn.
Tears ran down my face, or maybe it was the steam, I do not know. I just wanted to reach through time and tell that girl that I understand her and it was going to be okay one day.
My handkerchief was finished. The lace was flat and the handkerchief was beautiful to me even though there were tiny stains left behind from another woman who clutched it, wrung it, and worried about her predators.
