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June 27, 2005
Laundry list
LS once expressed amazement when she learned that I like to hang my clothes on a clothesline rather than put them in a dryer. It's true that I don't usually do it, except in hot weather when running the dryer is tantamount to suicide in an AC-challenged house. But it's nevertheless my preferred way of drying clothes.
LS is, it should be noted, a city girl, a New Yorker. I'm a country girl, a West Virginian. I have clear memories of the clothesline at 406 East Washington Street in Lewisburg: It was between the house and the old smokehouse. (No hams were cured there in my lifetime; rather, the smokehouse served as a fabulous playhouse for the children in the family.) There were 3-4 lines, and most of the clothespins were the simple wooden prongs that could be made into wonderful little dolls. (For Christmas one year Mike and I made a manger scene using modeling clay and clothespins; Mother was charmed, and the pictures still exist somewhere.) We had a clothesdryer, but in good weather the clothes were hung outside. That, too, was a big old 19th-century house with no AC. And the family was, moreover, an extended family of parsimonious Presbyterians. Waste not, want not.
But the task of hanging and taking down clothes was a pleasant part of life. It wasn't a task I particularly looked forward to, but it wasn't one I objected to, either. (And I was a remarkably lazy kid who objected to almost all work.) I recall the clothesline as a place of family community. It was a women-only place, where I would be called upon to help Mother or Sandy or Aunt Shirley put up or take in the wash. The conversation was light and relaxed.
On the other hand, I have a picture of Mother's grandmother, standing in front of what in the family was referred to as her "apartment" in Boston. It was a tenement. And outside that tenement were innumerable clotheslines. I have a feeling that the 20th-century version of those clotheslines—and that tenement—are LS's referent for hanging out the wash. Only the wretched would stoop to do it.
What do I like about hanging out the wash, besides pleasant memories from an otherwise mostly stressed-out childhood? Well, I do like the economy of it; plenty of that Presbyterian parsimony was successfully transmitted to me. And even though the childhood memories may not be active as I hang out wash, I also successfully imbibed the notion of the clothesline as a place of unhurried work. And certainly a part of it is what the wash smells and feels like after it's been hung out. The towels are stiff and thirsty, and everything smells fresh like Downy wishes it could manufacture.
Posted by senioritis at June 27, 2005 05:05 PM
Comments
When I lived in Japan, women hung their wash on the balcony (we lived in Tokyo, so there were no backyards), and I got into that habit-- hung out tons o'baby diapers-- but we (as dutiful wives) did this even though we had elelctric dryers. To this day, I still hang out larger items (quilts, pillow, sheets, blankets) out to dry. I love the smell.
Posted by: Billie at June 29, 2005 01:15 AM