Genuflections

I came across one of Yukimi's photos--something she shot on a recent sojourn to Europe. I  was stunned when I saw it and thought it captures completely what the wash house women attempt to convey with words. I stared at the photo and was transported to the sights, smells and sounds lingering upon this waterway graced by freshly hung laundry drying between flats. If you look closely you can see a woman standing on the bridge performing a task. And although it's unclear to me what she has in her hands, she seems to be working, completely given to the task before her. It is that same energy we take and give as we work on producing the anthology. An energy that intertwines between thinking, composing, work shopping, revising, producing, surviving, longing and loving, and makin' sure ends meet for our family and for our selves. All over the world women (in particular and people in general) work...their purpose--to help their familias stay afloat, like the gondolas in the water mirrored within this image. As above, so below...I can think of no better metaphor save the bridge and its double that beholds the eye, the cypher, the recursive circle of completion. A labour of love genuflected by wash house women's voices all over the world in solidarity--crisp and curry...we bring you Lavanderia.  

Calling all laundresses...the ad hit Poets & Writers Magazine, and the submissions are rolling in by the washload. Michelle and Lucia and I met in cyberspace to strategize about upcoming dirty deeds including the soon to be launched website--in particular, the gallery of photos taken by Michelle and Yukimi in San Diego, Tijuana and Los Angeles. There is mucho trabajando ahead, but the magnitude of the anthology calls for nonetheless than the Wash House collective to roll up our sleeves, tie up our heads and get busy with the many facets of pre-production. It's a labor of love, much like the thankless job of keeping our families in clean threads. But the focus here is to unbind voices that might not ordinarily be heard. I see bubbles, like the kind I used to blow from a blue wand on my back porch when I was a little girl.  Voices, I imagine, bubbling up, out and over the top of the container. They are fragile yet full of stories and poems that are structurally sound, well crafted--encasing a spectrum of colors in all of their lovely convexity.