The Clothes Line

"I want to live simply, to work honestly, to love completely and to dare mightily, so that when I die, my children, and their children, will know that I died empty, and well satisfied." ~ Doug Robinson

Gran had an old clothes line in her back yard.  It stood in front of the row of trees where we would pick apples to feed to the horses, and next to the shop where my dad could fix any piece of equipment that was broken down at the moment. 

And  I've got vivid memories of being a little kid and running around underneath that clothes line while Gran hung out her sheets.  The queen size ones with the pink flowers.  She'd wear an apron made of yellow terrycloth with red trim, filled with clothes pins.  She'd hang the wet sheets she carried in an old, round, brown laundry basket on the line to dry in the warm sun and the summer breeze. 

 People don't use old clothes lines anymore.  They take too long and we don't have time.  Instead, we pop sheets into a dryer and go on about our day.  Technology has made our lives easier.

But that means there are no conversations about how to choose the best apples to feed a bay horse, no games of tag between the hanging sheets, and no moments spent with a grandma in a yard on a summer day.  There are not kids who help their grandma by holding up clothes pins, no chance to look up at the shapes of the clouds, and no one yelling at the wet dog not to shake on the clean sheets.  We miss out on conversations about checking cows and tea parties and visiting the neighbors. 

Sometimes I think that in trying to make life easier, we've lost what makes life good.

I can sure tell you that I'd trade the dryer in my laundry room and every minute of the time it saves me to be 5 years old again, in the back yard on a sunny day picking apples and hanging out sheets.

(Apparently I have lots of childhood memories involving things in Gran's yard...remember the windchimes?)