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Indian Summer and Memories
11/9/05
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Wednesday, November 9, 2005
8:53:00 AM CST
Indian summer hit us a couple of days ago with temperatures back in the seventies, and yesterday got up to 86 degrees. With the humidity just in the 60% range, it felt clean and bright, and I went without the air conditioning that owns me in the summer. Leaves blew in the back windows that I had wide open, and sweeping them out of my dining room was well worth the freshness that came in with them.
My dryer died a few days ago, and the repairman won't be coming until Friday. My laundry wouldn't wait that long. I had actually forgotten that I have a clothes line tucked away behind our carport. I've felt thrown back to my childhood when all of our clothing dried in fresh air, and I was surprised at the memories that came back.
I grinned slightly when I showed my daughter how to use one pin to hold up the corners of two garments, remembering when I got the same little domestic lesson. I folded each article as soon as I took it down. This rhythm just seemed natural, and I realized that it was just what my mother and our maid did when they handled the clothing of my childhood. It was so unlike me now. When my clothes come out of the dryer, I dump them in the hamper and fold or hang them later...sometimes much later. I even remembered to hang the "unmentionables" on the back line closest to the building where they were least likely to be seen. I'd forgotten how stiff air dried clothing becomes, even with fabric softener. Nothing will make me enjoy the ironing this aspect of line drying demands though. Best of all, though was the smell -- cotton, detergent, bleach and sunshine, and just a hint of the vanilla and lavendar fabric softener I loved. No bottled fragrance will ever come close to that smell, and I savored it all day long. If I could have rolled in it I would have.
Today's laundry includes sheets and towels. I'm almost excited. When I was a kid, I would play under the drying sheets on the clothing line, pretending they were my castle, my fortress and sometimes my maze. In the early sixties, before dryers were as common as coffee pots and I was still young enough to enjoy this game, all sheets were white. I can still see the light filtered through the tight weave and feel the dampness evaporating from their smooth, warm, waving surfaces as I brushed against them.
My neighbors already think I'm a bit nuts (hopefully in a nice sort of way), and I wonder what they'd think if played under my sheets again.
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8:53:00 AM CST
Indian Summer and Memories
My dryer died a few days ago, and the repairman won't be coming until Friday. My laundry wouldn't wait that long. I had actually forgotten that I have a clothes line tucked away behind our carport. I've felt thrown back to my childhood when all of our clothing dried in fresh air, and I was surprised at the memories that came back.
I grinned slightly when I showed my daughter how to use one pin to hold up the corners of two garments, remembering when I got the same little domestic lesson. I folded each article as soon as I took it down. This rhythm just seemed natural, and I realized that it was just what my mother and our maid did when they handled the clothing of my childhood. It was so unlike me now. When my clothes come out of the dryer, I dump them in the hamper and fold or hang them later...sometimes much later. I even remembered to hang the "unmentionables" on the back line closest to the building where they were least likely to be seen. I'd forgotten how stiff air dried clothing becomes, even with fabric softener. Nothing will make me enjoy the ironing this aspect of line drying demands though. Best of all, though was the smell -- cotton, detergent, bleach and sunshine, and just a hint of the vanilla and lavendar fabric softener I loved. No bottled fragrance will ever come close to that smell, and I savored it all day long. If I could have rolled in it I would have.
Today's laundry includes sheets and towels. I'm almost excited. When I was a kid, I would play under the drying sheets on the clothing line, pretending they were my castle, my fortress and sometimes my maze. In the early sixties, before dryers were as common as coffee pots and I was still young enough to enjoy this game, all sheets were white. I can still see the light filtered through the tight weave and feel the dampness evaporating from their smooth, warm, waving surfaces as I brushed against them.
My neighbors already think I'm a bit nuts (hopefully in a nice sort of way), and I wonder what they'd think if played under my sheets again.
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This entry has 17 comments: (Add your own)
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When I first got married my new husband's kitchen had a washing machine but no room for a dryer, and I learned for the first time that things could be dried in the...open air (!) I loved the smell you describe so lyrically, but not the stiffness ~ there's nothing worse than towels that crackle like cardboard. ;P
You have lovely memories. :) -
I have to reach far back in my memory before I can recall clothes hanging on a line. I, too, used to play in the rows of hanging sheets. I guess a dryer is faster but it isn't nearly as much fun! Jon
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There is actually a scent that Yankee Candles sells called Clean Cotton and it comes close to the smell. We have it as a plug in scent and it fills our guest room. I hate ironing but I used to have a long clothesline that was used every possible day. The sheets that are line dried are such a treat.
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and the Japanese Beetles would land on the drying laundry on our lines...... there is nothing like that smell of clothes dried on a line in the sunshine. I hope that I experience that again someday:):):) Thanks for taking me back:) judi
11/14/05 12:45 AM
Judi