Frankly, I love them. In the years of living out on the farm, I had the most fantastic clothesline. Practical, serviceable, and there were only a very few days during the spring, summer, or fall that freshly laundered clothes, sheets or towels were not heeped into a basket, carried outside, and pegged onto the clothesline. Even in the cold chill of winter days, I would continue to use my clothesline to dry my bed linens.
In the ten years that I have lived in this house and this particular neighborhood, I have mourned the loss of something so simple and satisfying. But now I've discovered the neighborhood "rules" allow for discreet clotheslines, ones that can not be seen from the road.
I have literally awakened from sleep for several years with the sweet thoughts of hanging clothes on the line.
Finally, I have a clothesline in my life once again, retractable, modified for sure, and just big enough for me to hang one set of sheets and pillowcases. It is situated in an out of the way corner of my yard, and for the most part it is private.
Today I washed my bed linens, took my new clothes pegs, and with utmost delight I hung those sheets and pillowcases onto my little retractable line. Tonight I shall snuggle under their fragrant crispness.
All day the blanket snapped and swelled on the line, roused by a hot spring wind.... From there it witnessed the first sparrow, early flies lifting their sticky feet, and a green haze on the south-sloping hills. Clouds rose over the mountain....At dusk I took the blanket in, and we slept, restless, under its fragrant weight.
-Wash- by Jane Kenyon
