The laundromat is the perfect place to cry in public.
I'm here now, crying as I write this. I don't care who sees me. I'm hiding on one of the two-person benches between the three-load silver washing machines, tears welling in my eyes near their tipping point. I make eye contact with a man walking past me on his way to the sink. He seems a little worried. But even if it wasn't partially hidden, it wouldn't matter. I feel safe here. It's a place that prioritizes intimacy, beyond the point of false social etiquette. I'm surrounded by people who see the color of my underwear when I take it out of the dryer. What's a few tears at this point? We already know each other well.
I've always been too internal for my own good. I often cry in public because of what happens in my imagination. And the laundromat—its familiar, sterile smell of cleaning products and metal, the constant noise of water and hot air—is a place that seems particularly primed to slip into my subconscious mind, like slipping into a comfortable pool of Jell-O. either. I remember things I forgot. Romantic the Krypto Villain stickers on quarter vending machines. I sit and stare at people until it hurts. I fantasize about what their lives are like, or about all the times they wore those cute, faded jeans they pull out of the dryer while the static hits their skin. I see a couple sitting outside under the food tent. Their knees come together as they eat, and I conclude from their body language alone that they are, of course, in love. I see a teenager shading the washing machine in what I decide, in behavior that is all too familiar, is an attempt to get attention. I remember when he was 14 years old and needed care.
A laundromat in Los Angeles is always open and waiting for you.
The dryer hums softly, the fluffy smell of chemical flora increases, the tough little boys with silver teeth run in circles around their mother as she folds their Spiderman t-shirts. An image of myself flashes through my mind when I was little: curly hair, dirty Osiris, and the fake tattoos I got with the quarter machine fading on my forearm, using the laundry cart as a bumper car, or resting my head on a freshly baked mountain. of clothes that had just been piled up from the dryer.
I love laundry. I'll tell anyone who will listen. You'll see me at a party giving what could very well be a PowerPoint presentation on the joys of laundry. What most people see as an undesirable task, I see as a comfort zone. My own private version of the club, where fluorescent lighting floods the ceiling and there's always Amy Winehouse or Salt-N-Pepa playing over the speaker. My local laundromat is open 24 hours a day, like all good ones, and at any time of the day or night, for the rest of my life, I know there is a place that is open and waiting for me (as long as I have a hoodie to wash). I have never had a washer and dryer in the unit in the many years I have lived alone. And it never mattered. Because I have something rarer, more special: a home away from home.
May is wearing a Marni dress and pink Fendi boots.
Maahleek wears Miu Miu, the model's own jewelry.
There have been rumors on the Internet lately about “third places”: places people go that aren't their home or their office, but a secret third thing. “These places are disappearing!” the TikTok feed will alert you. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third place” in his 1989 book “The Great Good Place” and expanded on it in his 2001 book, “Celebrating the Third Place.” Oldenburg's life's work has been dedicated to explaining why informal gathering spaces are important, and in his writings he defined some characteristics of a true third place, including a low barrier to entry, being a status leveler, a place where conversations happen and, possibly most importantly, be a home away from home. This, Oldenburg writes, is the antidote to isolation, the lubricant to a healthy social balance. “You have nowhere to hang out and it shows,” said one TikTok creator, who made a series suggesting third places.
The laundry experience extends beyond the confines of its walls to its surroundings. If you are doing laundry in a neighborhood like mine, then you are very lucky and every day there is someone selling food on the sidewalk in front of you. The last time I was there, it was a new Colombian place for me, a Mexican empanada place and a birria place that sells it on top of pizza. The smell of brothy red meat mixes with the unmistakable perfume of Suavitel and Zote shavings. On winter weekends, you'll find the champurrado lady selling Styrofoam cups of this slimy, steaming drink out of the trunk of her minivan.
The parking lot is where all the good things happen. When I was in my early 20s, I used to put my load ys **** ab **** with my best friend while waiting for the cycle to end. It's where I bought someone's physical mixtape a couple months ago because I'm a recovering people pleaser and was in partial system shock even seeing a physical mixtape. It's where I can never find parking, not even on a weekday night, because as long as there are days left to live, there will be laundry to do.
The amount of activities going on there that have nothing to do with doing laundry seems specific, in many ways, to Los Angeles. We do all our photo shoots for our commercial brands in laundromats (who among us?), experimental punk shows, propose our best ideas. In my Notes app earlier this year I wrote, “Laundry Culture: Places of Business, Life, Love, and Food.”
I saw a post about a guy living in a renovated laundromat in Queens, which seemed fitting—something to aspire to. In “The Great Good Place,” Oldenburg writes that third places should inspire the same warm, fuzzy glow of belonging that their inhabitants might find in their own homes. There should be a sense of ownership, of taking up space. I remember this when I asked Zelle, the guy in the Colombian hat, for $6 for two potato and cheese empanadas. As I sit outside eating them, I notice a parked car with the driver's and passenger's seats reclined all the way back, two people with their feet up on the dashboard holding hands as they engage in a romantic, mutual endless ride in the car. Their phones. “That's beautiful,” I think. We feel at home in places where we need to spend time. We find ways to be comfortable, to make it our living room.
Maahleek and May wear Chanel.
When my mom comes to visit me she always brings a load of my clothes to wash at the laundromat where I am now. (Yes, I'm 29, but her love language is “acts of service,” so sue me.) Each time, she returns to my apartment with freshly folded t-shirts (and a blouse she shouldn't have been wearing). her in the dryer, but she did it anyway) and she regales me with a new story of an hour-long conversation she had with a stranger: her latest in her laundry saga. I'm more of the observant type. The interactions I tend to have here are quick, but I still find them deeply meaningful. I notice a lady selling intricate gold-plated rings at one of the tables by the window, the natural light bouncing off the metal tray as the afternoon sun descends. I ask him about them. All these little moments fill me with the feeling of being human. There's a lot of talk about the need for connection, the need for community, but no one wants to spend an hour a week philosophizing intense beauty in the mundane at their local laundromat, right? It's what I thought.
An important part of the laundry experience is the massage chair. It's the only place that offers a soft surface to sit on inside the building, and treating yourself feels good in a place like this. I sit on it long enough before it yells at me to put in money; of course, I never get the actual massage. I get up and move to a place where I can watch the meticulous dance of a large family folding their laundry. They always have like 15 children and 10 loads of dirty laundry, an assembly line that communicates: We are not new to this. They quickly fill an entire counter and move with precision. I watch a family bring in a mega Tupperware container full of hangers, holding each of their pretty shirts buttoned up like clockwork. It's hypnotizing. I see a long chartreuse dress with a floral detail that I would never wear but that intrigues me deeply. Deep down, there are moments of intensity that bubble and dissipate (an avalanche will be interspersed with serene moments) mimicking the flow of anything else in life.
And as soon as I slide too far, two women bring me back to reality arguing over a dryer, which is a normal interaction here. It lasted 15 minutes, each of them taking missed shots long after the initial confrontation ended. Draaaaama, I thought. And I laugh to myself. Because that's what happens when you're comfortable, when you're at home, when you're with your family.
Production: Mere studies
Models: Maahleek, May Daniels
Make up: Selena Ruiz
Hair: Adrian Arredondo
Photography assistant: Dillon Padgett
Styling assistant: Deirdre Marcial
