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I love to see a vista of crisscrossed colourful clotheslines on a summer’s day. Sure, I will acknowledge immediately my slight thrill at the sight of underclothes waving in the wind on high, but my interest isn’t only prurient. The line is a sun-and-wind-powered clothes dryer. Its proper and regular use can save enormous ecological costs – not to mention money.
Plus, clothes on the line are a triumph of human labour. Instead of dropping a heap of wet threads in the dryer to whirl and heat the world up with that much more spin, one reaches up in the manner of an orchestra conductor and with pegs affixes them like dancing musical notes to a line with a pulley, where, if there is any wind at all, they immediately begin to dance.
I allude to orchestra leaders purposefully because the longevity of those in this profession has long been noted. In fact, there is good science to suggest that this is a result of the wonderful cardiovascular workout from all that arm-lifting. So lines not only equal cleaner air and thrift, but they also signal immediate advances in the human lifespan.
The pulley, for those of us who love bi-directionality in mechanics, is a simple marvel. It’s like the answer to a riddle. “What can go in two directions at once and never get away from itself, no matter how far it goes?”
In general, laundry is the place for weird reversals. Clothes without the man. Undies – the sight of which might be eye-gold in an inappropriate moment – are here an anti-ceremony held high in full view. They’re washed not only of their aromas but of their hiddenness as well.
Watching clothes flail at the sky on a blustery night is, I’m sure, the origin of both angels and aliens, a kind of wind-improvised hieroglyphic – perhaps a mystic commentary on humanity or just a chance for the wind to wear your clothes and show you how to really make them dance.
If you don’t have a line, be creative. There are lots of other places to hang clothes, inside and out. Hell, I’d even see laundry put on flagpoles. The environment – that’s my country.
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