Clotheslines in Autumn

It is late autumn in London and storms have been blowing over the British Isles for days now. Weather being weather in ways I have never seen before. Today and yesterday came with a few sprinkles, but mostly sunshine and wind--and it is the wind that fascinates me. There is so much energy in the wind; potential, hope.

When the sun shone with the wind this morning one of my first thoughts was the ability to efficiently dry cleaning washed sheets on the line; sheets of cotton soft flannel, a delicate brocade pattern of white on ivory. Sheets for loved and visitors to snuggle into, wrap up in. I could dry the sheets in the house, on a stand or the radiator, but the smell is different, the texture of the fabric, the softness.

The image that never fails me is the clothesline of a house on the Irish bus I passed each day to university. Freshly cleaned family washes strung out for any kind of weather, relying on the wind. The property around the house went on for as far as I could see, a stone wall at the front separating the land from the road. My garden would have fit in their driveway by comparison, but I got a sense of the openness--the potential--as I struggled to pin the sheets to the line today, the wind dancing around me.