Most days I love my home and my tiny Secret Garden yard. But when I read about clotheslines as I did this week on the Gladys Taber listserv, tricklings of discontent drip-drip-drip on my brain.
I love clotheslines.
They're old-fashioned, helpful and kinda joyful, at least to me. A bright white sheet floating on a breeze is reminiscent of a lake full of sailboats and pillowcases on a line bring visions of vintage women in aproned-skirts standing alongside with clothespins in their mouths. Throw into this dreamy sight a few honking geese overhead and some swaying Shasta Daisies and I've had a peek into Heaven.
Yes, I'm serious.
Anyway, there's no room in my yard for a clothesline of any kind. Trust me, I've spent 11 years trying to find a way. My neighbor used to encourage me to hang our clothes on her line, which I gladly did for 8 years. But one day her adult son removed the clothesline and never put it back up. I could always tell it got in his way. Sigh.
Sometimes I take a wooden clothes dryer rack out into our sunny driveway and hang wet laundry on that and pretend it's the same. But it isn't, especially when the wind flings the clothes away, or worse, knocks the whole contraption over in a heap.
It's at those times when I long for the country. I start dreaming again of a rambling old farmhouse in the middle of a green patch of land surrounded by huge, pioneer-planted trees. I even sit at my dining room table at such times and pretend those are the lovely things I see outside the big windows, instead of the brick wall of our neighbors' house.
The latest issue of Mary Jane's Farm has a wonderful saying: "Farmgirl is a condition of the heart" and that's what I'm choosing to believe.
Besides, it's kind-of wonderful living a life where I must often flick the "on" switch of my imagination. Sometimes how we view a thing is more important than seeing it for what it really is.
The eyes of imagination lend enchantment, even to a city house and a tiny yard with no room for a clothesline.
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Quote of the Day: I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.
Martha Washington (1732 - 1802)
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