I Can't Stop Hand-Washing My Clothes

In times of great anxiety, I find comfort in the mechanical, the onerous. That is precisely what hand washing laundry is, a tiny manual labor of repetition—like kneading dough except the reward isn’t a steaming, delicious loaf, but the ability to wear your clothes without offending the noses of everyone else you live with.

For every crotch and armpit I scrub with a bar of unscented hotel soap, I am able to let go of something, if only temporarily. I am able to think less about my aunt, a pediatric pulmonologist who will certainly be affected by what is to come. I am able to think less about my roommate’s boyfriend, who works in the ICU, and the anxiety she must be feeling, though I know she hides it.