I am stubborn about it. I am closer to the sky out there. I am closer to women all over the world out there. I can tell how long any piece of clothing will take to dry in any weather. In Ireland, women hang laundry in the misty morning, and take it down dry that late afternoon. They know their sky. I remember on September 1, 2001, women were called upon to dance out in the full moon’s light all over the world. I did, all alone. My backyard was brightly gray-blue, the crickets were singing their tunes, and I swayed to and fro, under and around. As I pin each shirt, each sock, each sheet to the line, I feel like that dancing night, like there are other spirits feeling the same sun at my back and breeze at my side.
I don’t know anyone personally who hangs their laundry. Too busy. Throw it in the dryer with the perfumed anti-cling disposable cloth. Take it out hot and cringing.
Hanging laundry gives me a reprieve from the bustle of my day. I can think in slow motion as I hang each piece. I work out problems, console myself, plan my hour, and leave myself behind.
Most days when I hang laundry I spy on my bird feeders or give rubdowns to my dogs. Last week I almost stepped on a few busy ants. There is a crack on our patio in which a traffic jam of red harvester ants emerges and submerges. They lay a path with a stop, start cadence. I stay out of their workweek, but on this particular day, a few were struggling along my clothesline territory. They were hauling a fallen flower petal. They were having such a hard time handling this awkward load. I wanted to pick it up as a cargo plane, but I could not figure out if they were going to or from the nest. I also couldn’t figure out why. It was a petal, not a seed. Was it meant for a soft bed, or had they already extracted the nectar and this was refuse? They reached about 6 inches in 15 minutes, totally parallel to the far off nest. I could only marvel at these mini-He-women.
I am learning about and teaching odes to my students this semester. Robert Burns wrote an ode to a louse crawling on a lady’s bonnet in church, Walt Whitman wrote an ode to Lincoln after he died, and Pablo Neruda wrote a whole book of Odes to Common Things. I am looking forward to reading all the odes the students will laboriously come up with, all the things they will choose to praise. There will be cats, dogs, basketball, ipods, and even parents. I will choose my clothesline, of course.
I just learned of the newest appointed US Poet Laureate. Here is one of his poems:
What Work Is by Philip Levine
We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is--if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, "No,
we're not hiring today," for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.
How appropriate for this Labor Day, a day we spend not going to our workplace. We celebrate not working, rather than working. How odd. What about the labor of love, a mother’s birthing labor, a wife’s homecooked meal, and a man’s finding his calling? There is labor involved in staying friends, staying married, and staying connected. Labor makes the rewards and the lazy days sweet. This poem reminds me of the gifts of work.
Hercules had to do some ridiculous tasks. The list of them seemed endless. My perpetual hanging of laundry may seem ridiculous to some, but to me it is worth it! ~Labor Day, Sept. 5, 2011
