There is something immensely therapeutic about going through the motions of hanging clothes on a line. It is a gentle, soothing, almost spiritual act. The morning is the best time for this particular activity because the world is mostly quiet, the only sounds being the chirping of the little birds in the backyard trees and the occassional caw from the impatient crows waiting for their morning handout of bread crusts.
When I stand at the laundry line with a basket of clothes at my feet, time seems, not to stand still really, but to just not matter very much. All that interests me is the rhythmic bending, pinning, bending, pinning. And I'm always just a little sad when the last shirt or sock is hung on the line and it's time to go inside. But, too, I feel relaxed, peaceful, as though I've just spent a sacred moment in the presence of the Divine.
On some of my travels with my family to the Amish country in Pennsylvania and Ohio, I would sometimes catch a glimpse of the sturdy handmade clothing pinned to the lines near the large white farmhouses. The dark blues, purples, mauves, greens and blacks flapping in the breeze painted such a lovely picture---not just one of simplicity, but of industry, a life of integrity, and joy.
I think it is an art to find beauty in the simple pleasures that life affords us and that we so often take for granted, simple pleasures like the smell of line-dried sheets. And sometimes, there is nothing more lovely to behold nor more pleasing to the eye than a load of clean laundry pinned to a line by my own two hands, drying in the early morning sunshine.
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Patti, beautiful words, I too am finding the simple things very touching and meaningful right now, I think the changing of the seasons brings renewed hope and time for reflection of all things around us - the everyday pleasures.
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