Hang out the wash - i double dare you

 

I decided to create my own Blogging award and hand it out when I sensed the time was right. I think it is time. I was graciously awarded that lovely thing you can see to the right, and thought it high time I pass on the recognition and encouragement. Even the most highminded of us need a little nod.

Since blogging in earnest this January, I have found myself within a hive of connectivity and energy that has given me more than i ever expected. I am deeply grateful.

I took the photo for this at Algonquin Park in Ontario, Canada, the summer I turned 40. (was that 2 years ago?) It was the neighbor's clothes line, evidently, as no one wears pink in our family. When you are camping you let everyone see your dirty wet laundry, your wet clean laundry and your laundry thats been dry for days but you don't feel like taking off...no one cares. There are no dryers or laundry rooms to contain things. I like this. I also like the outdoor smell that lingers on the laundry - no chemical lab can re-produce that. 

At home I compete with my retired Italian neighbors to see who gets the wash out earliest in the day. 

ok, kidding, they win by 6 in the morning when I am still in bed or getting ready for classes or work.  But I do love seeing all of our lines full of random colour and shapes, blowing in the wind, when i can. I appreciate knowing that someone has taken the time and care to hang out their wash - sadly it is more often than not a big NO NO in most neighborhoods, or just within people's minds -  its just too unsightly, chaotic, and far too randomly colourful and is that a brassier? (WHY do they always have to use that word? its a terrible word - doesn't it sound so SEARS-catalogue-uncomfortable-as-heck-straps-the-size-of-a-belt-designed-by-a-man- pointy-cup-prison to you?)

 Sorry, I digressed quite a bit there. 

Hanging out the wash. Fresh, clean, and yet a little vulnerable, a little rogue.

(not Sara Palin rogue - did she have to steal that lovely word?)

I award the following Blogs with the "Hanging out the Wash" award - which means, simply, that these bloggers aren't afraid to hang out whatever they have, when there is a little voice inside that compells them to do it - they listen and hang - dirty, clean or sopping wet... this is an act of vulnerability, an act of hope, a communal act of trust and sharing - and we are all the better for it. And do check out these blogs  - you might really relate to whats hanging on their line...as i have - 

Kathy Jenkins, at Lessons from the Monk I Married  - she literally hangs out her laundry 365 days a year

Kristin Brumm, at Wanderlust - she hangs it out, oh yes, and sometimes... its still unwashed...!

Michele at, Laundromat - need I say more?

Tony Anders at Artisan of the Human Spirit - my husband only reads my blog, and then there was Tony...

Jason at The Jason Show - a motely crew of wash, his life is the best "hanging out the wash" story i ever read

Beth Chapman at Hope's Breath - a veteran of the wash, attentively hanging out one piece at a time...

Sai at Waves upon the Shore  - Sai's wash is always clean and blowing in the breeze...refreshing

Marika at Pranayama before Breakfast - Her laundry is Swedish, washed in English, hanging in the Rome sun

Heather Conroy at Heather Conroy's Verbal Report - she hangs out things that we need... to take off her line

All the folks at Writers Rising - like looking down an alleyway and seeing a riot of clotheslines against the grey

Theresa at Chronicles of a Veteran Kindergarten Teacher - she hangs out little stories on the line that make you smile

Jeanne at Dream a Happy Life - her laundry travels - and has that fresh smell of truth and gumption 

Dawn at Healing Morning - she observes her laundry hanging, drying and folding - all on its own energy

Whenever you hesitate about hanging out your "wash" that you feel compelled to hang, by suddenly get lazy or shy or just think of sticking it in the dryer - remember: washing is only the beginning - you have to air it out where the sun shines and the wind blows - where others who walk by can breathe in the scent.

Deep peace to you all! - just grab this, well, button over here - - - -(i've always wanted to say that...)

bob, neil and barry

This is a pic of my dear husband, sleeping in, while we are camping in Algonquin Park with our tent trailer. I've already walked to the comfort station and back, pondered the water and looked for loons in the mist, read half a book, drank a pot of coffee and then proceeded to make breakfast -in and out of the trailer, doors slamming, kettles whistling, kids get up, tustle, find their clothes, eat cereal appetizers, neighbor babies are screaming for their bottles, kids are biking past with bells on...

and Robert sleeps.

My husband's delight in naps and sleep is in direct juxtaposition to my inability to do so. I am an insomniac. i have a more difficult time letting go of my brain. it often chatters to itself late into the night. my doc wonders if i am, occasionally, a low-grade manic. I wake up and think...think I'm sleeping then realize that if i am thinking, then, i must be awake, think some more and then, think unconsciously for a bit, awake from my sleep-thinking to realize that i might as well think upright...once my brain is kick-started, it doesn't stop for sleeping in.

This routinely happens to me every morning, especially while at home as I am treated to the background noise of Robert's clock radio playing awful, cheesy, mindless '70's tunes that he sleeps through, sometimes song after song after song, even though it is 3 inches from his head. I cannot sleep or think when Barry Manilow or Neil Diamond are crooning, but Robert can. Why does he insist on this nostalgic cheese station in the first place? probably the nostalgia. Robert, having worked in his parents hardware store for many years and having endured an hour and a half bus ride to and from school with radio privileges for years on end, has heard, even the most obscure songs, several times over. He can sing the tunes to them even while half-asleep, which is the state i think he was in on the bus, no wonder he didn't mind. Oh darn, a long bus ride, what to do? zzz.

Often he ends up with a song in his head when he gets up. Not knowing where he got it from (mystery!) he finds himself singing it in the shower..."I write the songs that make the whole world sing...!" He is usually sadly out of tune despite his full grasp of the lyrics.

Sometimes i wonder what such early and frequent exposure to Barry et al did to the wiring of his brain. we do find his jokes super cheesy.

Needless to say, when the clock radio drones on and on, i want to get out of that bed. I walk on the hardwood floors and hear them creak underfoot, boil water and grind some beans, meditate on the morning fresh and new, write a few lines somewhere upon my laptop, maybe read a few lines in the newspaper. I enjoy the quiet of the sleeping house, but if i listen closely i can often still hear a faint Barry singing, "Copa, Copa Cabaaaaaana..." At this point i call out to him, and he never fails to be freshly baffled every morning: "...i can't believe I slept in".

To be able to turn oneself off like that, when one wants to, is the envy of my life. To be able to sing those songs in the shower, without any self-consciousness, is, i wonder, another form of the same thing? Turn off that incessant, insistent, demanding brain. Enjoy. Repeat.