I think the image speaks for itself but I want to pause here to think about why I perked up the second I caught the flash of yellow from the backseat of an uber. I was on my way to the dentist at UCSF. My phone was in my bag, so to get this photo I had to take it out in time before the light turned.
I took this photo more than a year ago, but even now I remember a feeling upon seeing this that something important had just “happened,” that I’d witnessed an intelligence in action. I felt distinctly lighter and more optimistic about my impending visit to the dentist than I had only a few seconds before passing the laundromat.
Something about the specific finiteness of the problem, and the immediacy of the solution. So dazzling. I always admire a solution that activates something already at hand. I love how it’s sort of a closed loop: hold the door of the laundromat open with the vessel of the very substance that is at the very center of the actions that most define this place.
I feel like I can picture the person in the moment of having the idea.
The material properties of the bottle allow it to be crushed so that it can be the right height to keep the door open make it very functional.
The space between the bottom edge of the door and the sidewalk seems too big for a regular doorstop and maybe they don’t keep their door open enough to warrant making some kind of dedicated wooden doorstop that would do the job. Or maybe their door is open on most days and they just run through a series of bottles.
I love how useless the bottle seems, on its back, crushed in the middle, emptied of its intended function, but it’s precisely that emptiness that is now making it highly effective in its new job: to be the golden usher holding wide the door, welcoming all who step under the awning, their baskets unwieldy, their quilts too large for the home washer, and opening the way as these launderers set forth back out into the world, their towels and t-shirts fresh and folded.