by Elizabeth Castiglione

My mother never ironed, or at least, not in the way that Amy Pellegrini’s mother ironed. Amy’s mother had an empty room with just a laundry basket, the ironing board, and a small black and white TV on which she watched soap operas and “The Little Rascals” re-runs. Amy’s sister had a color-coded closet, with pastel-colored oxford shirts arranged from lighter to darker, all ironed.

I didn’t know what starch was until I was a teenager and hung around a friend of my mom’s who was much younger than my mom and whose husband had died. She lived in Warwick, and had two kids, high cheekbones, and a boyfriend named Danny. They slept together in her waterbed. I used to sit in her kitchen and watch her spray starch on her Hawaiian shirts before going out with him.

Her house wasn’t anything like the Pellegrini’s. She had a small dog named Muffin who left little hard poops all over the house. When I babysat for her kids, I would go around with an inverted baggie over my hand picking them up and throwing them out.

My mom never used starch, and, like I said before, she never
ironed. Actually, she did iron on rare occasions, like the night before christenings, weddings, funerals, or other holidays in which we would be going to church and then to dinner at my grandparents’ house in Cranston. Normally, she just hung all my dad’s shirts in the shower after she took them out of the wash and let them drip dry.

This system was in line with her plant-watering mentality. On Saturdays when it was warm enough, she sent the four of us out to the back yard with all the plants from inside the house. We went crazy with the hose, spraying the plants and each other until we had been out there long enough for her to believe that the plants were well saturated. She would then yell for us to come in and start changing the sheets on our beds.

When I told my mother that I was not reapplying for my art professor job this year and that I was going to stay home after the baby’s born, she said, “well, just make sure to keep a toe in.” I immediately had visions of my professional life growing into a dim memory as I turned into what I thought she had been for all those years: dissatisfied and annoyed at the kids who took her from her real love, which was being a nurse.

Now she is head nurse in the maternity unit of the local hospital. She takes care of people and bosses them around and is crusty and obnoxious and sweet all at the same time. I realize that she is just the same as she has always been, only now someone gives her money for it.

Which brings me back to starch. My mother, the nurse, treated housekeeping like triage. Do the worst first, patch the bloodiest wounds, and let the small stuff go. Our refrigerator never smelled, like some people’s. (Of course, the Pellegrini’s never smelled either.) And we always had plenty to eat, though we didn’t always like it. (Amy’s mother let her eat Lipton’s chicken noodle soup and cheerios whenever she didn’t like what they were having for dinner.) In between changing diapers and hanging clothes on the line and making meatballs, my mom went out and taught people about having babies and how to breathe through labor so that you don’t kill your husband as you birth your baby.

I, however, am very interested in starch, and not so interested in birthing babies, except my own. And I am interested in art, and in making stuff, and in doing a lot of the things that my mother rushed through in order to do what she cared about.

Part II: A Trip to Stop and Shop

I went to Stop and Shop, parked illegally with the dogs in the car and the windows open, and rushed through the laundry aisle hoping that no one from the dog park drove by and recognized Sam and Ellie sweltering hopelessly and dangerously in the 90 degree heat. Normally on such a hot day, I wouldn’t have the dogs in the car at all but I was between a trip to the vet to get Sam tested for Lyme disease (again) and a trip to the pet store to get the dog hair clipper fixed (again.) There were only a few brands of starch on the shelf.

I was surprised. There seem to be something like thirty-three brands of shampoo, eleven brands of toothpaste, and at least twelve different types of laundry detergent. Four of the starch brands were in aerosol cans. I feel guilty buying aerosol cans. They offend my complicated yet internally logical sense of aesthetics and politics. They look like they are bad for the environment, and I like things that look like they are good for the environment, even if they aren’t any more ecologically friendly than the things that look bad. Like containers in simple packaging with little pine tree icons on the side. The worst are the containers that look bad but may in fact be better, such as, I have heard, Styrofoam cups. Apparently paper cups are somehow worse ecologically than Styrofoam cups. I don’t know why this is. I just know that I was told it in college by someone whom I regarded as a radical environmentalist. Maybe it was a plot to keep me from buying any disposable cups at all. I don’t know. But I do know that I was momentarily paralyzed in front of the starch shelf because the aerosol cans may or may not have been recyclable, while the plastic gallon jug of starch most certainly was recyclable.

Maybe I should have gone to the natural foods store down the street and paid five times as much to dispense bulk starch into my own glass container. Actually, I looked for starch there yesterday and couldn’t find it. Maybe starch itself is environmentally bad. Oh shit. And the dogs are sitting in the car probably starting to hyperventilate from the heat. I should buy the gallon container but there are no empty spritzer containers right there, which I would buy in a minute, no matter the price. I know that we have spritzer containers at home because I bought some once in another fit of misplaced environmentalism, but the only one that I can locate for sure in my mind is the one we keep under the sink. That’s the one with the special liquid for removing dog pee from carpets. (Note: this product does not work on white oriental carpets borrowed from one’s husband’s grandmother.)

I buy the aerosol can with the simplest graphic design and drive home, the dogs panting in the back seat.

Part III: To Steam or Not To Steam

Clearly the makers and packagers of starch assume that the consumer possesses a certain familiarity with the product. The directions on the can are amazingly vague. My only direct personal experience with starch occurred six years ago during my graduate school. We soaked Rives BFK cotton rag paper before using it to print our etchings. Soaking released the starch from the paper. Or rather, released the sizing, which I think is the same thing, sort of. I have never personally attempted to infuse starch into an object. It is more difficult than I would have thought, though I must say that I do
believe that I am now fairly adept after a two-hour stint at the ironing board. The directions on the can were of little assistance.

I quote, “Set iron at recommended fabric setting.” How do I know what is the recommended fabric setting? If I am ironing a cotton shirt, and I set the iron to “cotton” and sporadic bursts of steam form puddles on the shirt, and the starch forms thin translucent sheets which stick to the iron, does this mean that I have done something wrong? When starching, do different rules apply regarding temperature and steam?

Again, I quote (this time from “Helpful Ironing Tips), “To prevent flaking, allow starch to penetrate fabric before ironing,” and, “Incorrect iron temperature and over-spraying can cause flaking, sticking, and iron coating.” I have now experienced flaking, sticking, and iron coating. Again I wonder, have I adjusted the setting to the “Incorrect iron temperature?” Or am I over-spraying? This is so unscientific. In an attempt to reduce the variables to one, I stop adjusting and readjusting the setting. My variable will be quantity of spray, and I will experiment on my husband’s handkerchiefs, of which there are many.

I know from reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie that “a good laundry does not starch handkerchiefs.” Only the lower classes carry starched handkerchiefs, in the mistaken belief that they are emulating the gentry. My husband calls on the telephone as I focus on the third handkerchief. I am feeling rather self-satisfied. Having reduced the quantity of spray, and ironing each handkerchief three times, I have achieved a result comparable to the stiffness I felt on his professionally starched shirts. He wants to know what I am doing. I tell him that I am engaged in the early stages of an ongoing performance art piece. “Oh,” he says. “Who is the audience?” “I
am,” I reply.

Sweat is dripping down my face. I unhook my size 38C maternity bra which I purchased last week at the fancy maternity store in Providence. I am 5 feet tall and have only ever had an A cup. I have never before had boobs big enough to warrant a real bra. I am barefoot and pregnant. I know how to iron and starch a shirt. I feel invincible.

“Performance Piece: Housewife” may be found in Elizabeth Castiglione’s forthcoming Stumbling in the Dark: Art, Motherhood, and Mental Illness.