I hang laundry on the line all year long, but it's extra special to me during the summer. The way the dappled sunlight plays off the fabric as a warm breeze dances with fresh linens -- ah, the display transports me back to my roots in a way little else does. Add in a flicker of lightnin' bugs and the slam of a screen door, and I'm right as rain.
I can't claim to have always loved these things. Some tasks I "get" to do today were chores I "had" to do in years past. When I was a kid, Mama would make me help her carry a huge yellow tub of wet clothes to hang on a rickety clothesline that wasn't much more than four strings clinging to two sticks in the back yard. We had to watch our steps for holes the dogs dug. Mama claimed falling in one would make us twist an ankle or snap a leg, and we didn't have money for that.
We also didn't have money to replace linens, so the day my dog pulled down our set of 1960s orange-striped bedding and proceeded to use it as her personal chew toy was the day I saw my mother race across the yard saying "all the words," potholes be damned. I guess some things are worth running the risk of a leg snap.
One might think the chewing event would make Mama use the dryer more often, but the thought never appeared to cross her mind. It not only crossed mine; it camped there. I thought life grand when we used the dryer, baseboard heaters or the window A/C. When I grew up, I told myself, I'd not spend another day hanging clothes, carrying wood and ashes, or sweating with the windows open.
While we don't have a wood stove in our downtown loft, and we do breathe "bought air" during the summer months, I still open the windows every chance I get and hang laundry on the clothesline daily. Some folks claim it's bad press to show your undergarments to the world. Who knows what trouble could unfold? Well, I'm not about to throw in the towel. I say it's the start of a new era and a load off my mind. The clothesline and I are "maid" for each other. Someday, ballads might even be written in our honor. I can hear Abba singing now...
Friday night and downtown's aglow
Folks are millin' for a place to go
Where they can find a little dinner
Check out the town square
They look up in the air.
Anybody else see those drawers?
Hanging up there several floors
With holey socks and old T-shirts
It just underscores
She's in a redneck trance
And when she gets the chance
She is the clothesline queen
She likes to clean
And keep it green, oh yeah
She can scrub
Turn the Tide
Like she's done all of her life
Ooh, see that girl
She's so country
She is the clothesline queen!
It's sure to be a hit, if you have a dryer sense of humor.