HANGING OUT WASH AS SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

Linda Martin

I do know that hanging out wash is not these days a leading coffee break conversation. But I find that hanging out wash supports my sensual needs and feeds my soul.

The story of how this came to be goes back 50 years, back to when I was a little girl and my mother was in the hospital a lot. As a result I got to spend many hours with a motherly single woman, Aunt Caroline. Her primary job was to care for her aging mother—my grandmother—and she was often hired as a nanny for families adjusting to new babies or to help out a family experiencing some kind of tragedy.

I was most under the care of my Aunt Caroline when I was five to seven years old. She was a woman who knew how to function as an emergent curriculum teacher even though she had only finished eighth grade herself. Her daily household responsibilities automatically included the children under her care at that particular moment.

The highlights of learning to wash and hang out clothing with my Aunt Caroline happened at my home, and at times it happened at her home. Either place, it would go like this:

Mondays were washdays for the household’s personal clothing, using an old-fashioned wringer washer. It was so exciting for me to watch and catch that flattened, squeezed-to-almost-dry clothing coming out between the two rollers. Safety was the number one lesson taught to me here: Over and over I was reminded, "Don’t ever let your fingers or hands get too close to those wringers!" That caution penetrated deep into my being—because I never wanted my fingers and hands to become as flat as the wet clothes did.

The real treat for me on washday was having my own child-sized wash basket in which to carry my own doll clothes outside to my own child-height washline. Aunt Caroline thought nothing of taking the time to wash my "clean" doll clothes on this busy Monday washday. She even had a handmade child-sized apron with pockets to hold the clothespins for me to wear while hanging out my wash.

As we proceeded from the basement washroom to the outdoors, we would check the state of the sky—clear or cloud?—as well as "check the wind." This was important data for us to have as we talked about how long it might take to dry the clothes or that maybe today we better only put one load, because it might rain later. Of course, a rainy day meant washday had to be pushed to another day, because there was no dryer at Aunt Caroline’s house.

The art and science of hanging out wash go hand in hand. First we had to clean the washline with a damp cloth to make certain our clean clothes did not get dirty from dust on the line. We had to hang each piece of wash in a way that saved line space and clothespins. And of course the wash had to be hung in an aesthetically pleasing way. What would the neighbors think if our wash were hung in disorderly fashion?

We hung the specific types of clothing together. This was a wonderful exercise in categorizing. The white items of wash were hung first. The washline up would look something like this: underpants, followed by undershirts, socks, slips. Then we would hang the outer clothes.

Finally we would hang the colored clothing. Once again, shirts had to be kept together as did trousers, dresses, and so on. Of course the trousers had to be hung inside out making it easier for the pocket liners to dry. In fact, most dark-colored clothing was hung on the line inside-out as well, because this lessened the possibility that colored clothing would become faded and bleached out by the sun.

The academic learnings of this process continued as we were diligent about conserving the amounts of clothespins we used by overlapping clothing, making it possible to use one clothespin to pin two edges of two items of clothing. This made it possible to hang out six pieces of clothing using seven clothespins instead of 12.

In addition, it was crucial to know which end of the clothing or bedding was best suited to be pinned directly onto the washline. The piece of wash dried faster if the hemmed edges were positioned at the bottom, furthest away from the line, when possible. Take a pillowcase for example: The doubled fabric hemmed edge would take longer to dry if rolled over the washline instead of being allowed to flop freely in the breeze.

Washing and hanging out the bedding would happen on Thursdays. There would never have been enough washline to hold personal items and bedding on the same day. The real bonus of bedding washday was crawling into fresh-air-scented sheets, and pillowcases that night.

The long sheets hung at a line height suited for my aunt’s reach meant we had to put props under the lines so the clean, wet bedding would not touch the ground, causing the corners to become dirty. That was an Aunt Caroline job. I was just too small to manage those tall wooden props.

However, I was not too small to inherit my aunt’s ability to find meaning in the ordinary happenings of the day. Because of her deliberate way of including me in the washday process as a child, I still appreciate the beauty of laundry drying outside, whether it is part of a fertile farmhouse landscape or draped over fences and rocks in a Third World country setting.

I still love hanging out wash, even in winter. It is a spiritual experience for me, especially when I am not rushed. Of course I also value my automatic washer and dryer. And no one in my neighborhood cares about the aesthetics of my garment-filled washline. Thank you, Aunt Caroline, for "home schooling" me (when home schooling did not formally exist) in ways that kept me safe, nurtured my spirit, and fed my intellect.

—Linda L. Martin, Harleysville, Pennsylvania, is an early childhood education instructor and consultant. This story emerged from a Master’s level Writing/Rubrics course assignment.