For The Love of Laundry Lines

I have a passion for laundry lines.

I love the way they tell a story, the real story of real people.

A little bit the same way as walking through an alley, in the back of a home, will tell you a real story, also.

Laundry lines share their information without words, without pretense, without shame.

Laundry lines show you sheets, trusting that most intimate bit of someone’s life to the sun, to the wind, to the eyes of strangers. Sheets where real people, sleep, dream, worry, make love, maybe cry too. Where else would you see your neighbors’ sheets? And even though you don’t “need” to see their sheets, isn’t there something special about doing so?

Laundry lines show you clothes, unadorned, unpopulated and unmatched. Socks, too. And towels.

One day, I am going to create a beautiful book filled with a collection of photographs of laundry lines, photographs I will have taken all over the world. From the bright cloths of South Italy, strung way high above narrow streets, to the super efficient Parisian clothelines, stretched over tiny bathtubs.

Tonight, as I walked around, I was blessed with happy news, straight from my neighbors’ clotheline.

Alex and SaraLou have been expecting her first baby and even though I have only ever exchanged a few words with them, it has been wonderful to see her belly growing at the same rate as her vegetable garden.

In the spring, as she planted her seeds in long straight rows, she barely looked plump. These past few weeks, as she harvested her zucchini, she looked beautifully ripe.

She told me that her baby was due on the 28th. She told me that she had ordered a birthing tub to be brought to the kitchen of their tiny house. I heard in her voice that she was a little nervous when she told me about “having heard a lot of scary stories.” She seemed genuinely relieved when I told her not to listen to scary stories, that she was going to make her very own story.

Over the past couple of days, SaraLou had drifted through my mind and I had wondered if the baby had arrived, if all was okay.

Walking by their home, there had been no sign of anything different.

Until tonight.

Tonight, as I approached Alex and SaraLou’s yard, I saw a tiny bright spot in the middle of their laundry line. Strung in between Alex’s usual mechanic’s jeans was the teensiest, sweetest little green t-shirt.

Just like that.

No words needed.