Driving up Bragg Hill recently, I noticed a relatively new house had added a clothesline across its back porch. It was festooned with laundry drying in the morning breeze.
It was cheerful and colorful and made me appreciate the sunshine, the breeze and the movement. It reminded me that I’d received an email about a local road association bylaws discussion being scheduled and one of the things on the agenda was getting rid of a prohibition on clothes lines in that private development.
Remember, it used to be déclassé to hang your clothes out to dry. Not only might someone see your knickers (gasp) but they might see your towels and sheets. Perish the thought. It’s funny how our sensibilities have changed. First laundry was only dried on a line outside, and then it was gauche. Now it’s not.
We have a clothesline at our house. The washer and dryer are on the second floor and the clothesline runs from a second floor balcony to a nearby tree. I’m a huge fan of the clothesline. I love how the sheets come off it as if they were ironed and I love when the clothes smell like fresh air.
I posted pics of an entire load of colorful t-shirts hanging on the line on social media a while back and titled it “Backyard Prayer Flags.” I got one response from a friend who said she was sorry to see my dryer was broken. Hmmmm. File that under people unclear of the concept.
That post was before the 2022 and 2023 flooding. It was before the U.S. foray into Iran and gas prices spiking and inflation climbing inexorably. Beyond money, there are legit reasons to be hanging your laundry on a clothes line to save energy and reduce your carbon footprint.
But there’s also something very satisfying about pinning the laundry to the line on my mini-balcony, and reeling it out towards its big anchor tree.
I posted another picture of laundry drying on social media, showing white sheets with red poppies drying against the red, orange and yellow October trees in my backyard. I called that one “Autumn Scented.”
No one sent me any condolences about my dryer that time.
