Dear Anonymous,
Remembering a conversation on the street. Between two men on the street and myself. Somehow it came around to laundry. I asked how laundry worked for them in their lives. They are both very attentive to hygiene and appearance, which I notice is not universal out here.
They tell me their options and the cost. They ask me if I have my own home. I do. He says 'So you can hang your laundry outside?'
They reminisce. About the smell of sheets hung outside. About the feel of towels dried on a line and their rough thirstiness.
I leave admitting I have been unable to figure out a clothesline for the 22 years I have been in this house. I sit with the privilege of not having to figure that out. It stings.
I am swamped with the memory of the squeaky sound wooden clothespins made as my mother hung basket after basket of laundry to dry in the early spring wind. The snap of the sheets. The dance of the loaded clothes lines against spring skies.
What memories stir home?