We’re gonna keep it short and sweet today. 

Let’s talk about laundromats. 

I know. Who would’ve guessed, with a title like this one. Wow.

And no, we’re not about laundry. We’ve already talked about laundry. 

Laundromats.

Ok–what I mean is that mundane places can be so beautiful. You just gotta see them in the right light. 

The quiet moments.

Year two of my writing apprenticeship is fast approaching, so I got new photos taken. (Shoutout to the awesome Melissa Pauquette!)

So we hopped in the car, with an assortment of odd props and no plan.

On a whim, we thought we should stop at the laundromat. It wasn’t too far and not likely to be busy on a Wednesday night. I’d been there once when I first got to town. Didn’t remember much about it. We thought it might be a fun place to shoot, if not only because why would you do a photoshoot at a laundromat?

We get there and boom. The whole interior is lime green.

The walls. The tables. The trash bins. The WALL CLOCK. All matching in a fun shade of lime. It also matched the Hawaiian shirt I was wearing. YES!

I don’t know how I didn’t remember that the place was green. So I began looking around to see what else I didn’t remember.

And then I started noticing things. 

The light through the front window was so soft and dreamy. The air inside was calm and quiet. There was a little arcade in the back with Pac-Man machine. 

And the round washing machine doors–with their clear plastic centers–were perfect size for me to put my head behind for a fun picture.

Are any of those things extraordinary?

No. 

That’s what makes it so fun.

There are quiet moments everywhere. There are golden beams of light and pocket-sized arcades. Even in the laundromat on a Wednesday night.

What quiet moments hide in your string of run-of-the-mill places? What lovely boring things are in plain sight?

I dare you to look around you, wherever you are–a laundromat, grocery store, pretty much anywhere ordinary–and find three things that are not abnormal, just unnoticed.

Fair is fair–I’ll list off three things from my living room right now:

• The light is hitting the golden doorknob just right so that it’s casting a glittery corona on the door.
• There’s a reflection in the TV of the outside foliage; the TV makes it look dreamy, like it’s been painted with soft brushes.
• The very top of the light/shadows from the blind slats are perfectly even with the TV stand. (Well, in the time it took me to phrase that sentence, the light has shifted up a few inches, but you get my point.)

I could go on, but I’ll stop now. For your sake.

Keep an eye out for those quiet moments. They’re not extraordinary, but that’s okay. Things don’t need to be extraordinary to be lovely.