An Unexpected Love Affair

Its happened. I have fallen in love with a non-living object. Yes, that's it...my senses have been captivated by a singular object.

My story begins in August of this year. It was a weekday...a beautiful blue winter's day in Oz. We had traveled to the Bunnings (ala Home Depot), and picked up everything we needed to welcome this new object into our lives. Hate to disappoint some of you, but it was not an iPad2, giant Plasma TV or a shiny new car. It was far simpler than that...definitely more endearing...practical in all ways...and....well, elegant.

What is this wunderkind, you ask? Its a Daytel rotary clothesline.

Yes, that was not a misprint....a clothesline. A well known brand of rotary clothesline is “Hills Hoist”...a Daytel is visually and virtually the same...far less plastic pieces...not as expensive. To paint you a picture, think of a pole in the ground with four extending arms (arms that reach out and welcome our laundry!) linked with plastic line which form a square....or, if you where up in the air looking down....you may see a man-made spiders web!

Now that I have you smiling...either at my seeming lack of sanity, or at your impulse to check to see if your leg is still being pulled...let's talk clothesline.

'Pure and simple' would constitute my definition. It's a sailing ship docked in my backyard waiting for passengers. Every slight breeze is celebrated with a turn, a twist of metal arms. I had a long think of why I am so enamored with this whirly-gig. For me, gathering the wind (in sheets/towels/clothes) reminds me of sailing on the Great South Bay off Long Island, where I grew up. I remember the first time I went on a sailboat. Her name was 'Pixie'...she was a 24' day sailer...no cabin, wooden (built in the 1930's), mainsail and jib, perfectly trained to turn into the wind when the tiller was released. But that beauty wasn't what captured me...it was the sound....of rather, the lack of it....the whoosh...the slicing sound of boat through water...the silence.

Hmmmmmm.

Prior to Pixie, I was fearful of sailboats. I told my Dad if he bought Pixie that I wouldn't go sailing with him. I was afraid of the boat capsizing, dragging and holding me under until I drowned. Amazingly, it wasn't anything that was said to me that changed my mind. It was what wasn't said. It was the silence. The silence of sailing erased every bit of anxiety trapped in my body. I embraced the peace...no outboard motor gurgling, revving...no noxious gas fumes...no shouting to be heard over the noise. It was just a hull, effortlessly carving a line in the water..........wait.........as the boat slips through...the water seamlessly heals itself.

While our clothesline doesn't carve a space in water, it plays with the wind as a sail may. The wind may not be strong enough to whistle or make tree branches groan, but it will be strong enough to fill a t-shirt or pillowcase...enough to make laundry blossom...the breeze will take those clothes and make them travel endlessly in a circle...now fast...now slower...always returning to where they began.