How well I remember the sensation of the twin rubber rollers on the wringer of Mom’s white enamel washing machine pressing down hard on my young flesh from hand to lower armβ€”my screamsβ€”then Mom’s quick thrust, disengaging my arm from the wringer.

Pink toy washing machine, Etsy

 

When I was tall enough to help, I pinned clean clothes with wooden pins to Mom’s clothes lines, two parallel metal lines stretching from the grape arbor near the kitchen window all the way to the mulberry bush by the outhouse. InΒ winter, I touched cold sheets and towels made stiff by icy winds, before wrestling them into the wicker laundry basket.

 

Winter clothesline, Christine Henehan

 

 

 

In the backyard of our former house in Killarney Shores, I smile remembering clothes and bed linens gently blowing in the breeze.

 

My blog friend Liesbet Collaert sometimes hand washes on the go. Liesbet leads a nomadic life with her husband Mark and doggie daughter Maya. Sometimes far from a laundromat, she washes clothes by hand. You can find more about her roaming life in her A+ memoir HERE.

Liesbet Colleart hand washing in Ushuaia, Argentina.

 

***

Author Barbara Brown Taylor Muses about Laundry and more

Barbara Brown Taylor’s Learning to Walk in the Dark is the best book about exploring darkness I have ever read. In fact, it is the only book on the topic I have encountered. Early on, the author warns that her book is more of a journal than a manual, β€œfocusing on spiritual practice rooted in ordinary, physical, human life on earth, like going for a walk, paying attention to a tree, hanging a load of laundry on the line, and treating other people like peepholes into God.” Read more here.

 

Author Jennifer Harris Describes the Ministry of Laundry

The mountain rises every day, not just in its elevation, but in its girth. It is a mountain of socks with holes, t-shirts and sports shorts, of faded school uniforms, denim jeans too small, and kids’ shirts now too tight, mixed in with bedsheets, pillow cases, and tablecloths. We sort through the piles of laundered items to separate the items that fit from the items that are ready to be bagged up and ushered forth into the wonderful world of The Thrift Shop. The socks who’ve lost their matching pair are tossed into the lone sock drawer in the laundry room. One day, I’m sure I’ll go through that drawer and find all the pairs have been reunited in there over the years. Different seasons have called for different methods of managing the vast amount of laundry our family has used.

You can find the rest of her article here.

 


A Writer’s Tips

Writers in the Storm blog post – Margie Lawson:Β  Tag You Dialogue with Big-Time Power

 

Considering all the elements of writing, dialogue tags are like clothespins. When you’re hanging clothes on a line, they have an important job to do. But no one truly values them. Clothespins become rough and faded and cracked, but we keep using them.

Just like writers keep using the same overused dialogue tags that only do one job. They tell the reader who said those words, but they don’t do anything else.

It seems like writers often grab the first clothespins that pop into their mind to tag dialogue. They keep the clothes on the line, but they don’t add depth or interest or big-time power.

So many missed opportunities to share important story stuff like subtext. Grab that emotion. Get it on the page!

 

She offers some super examples from other writers:

#1 Detective Lake’s voice was loaded with anger.

More precise:

All the friendliness has dropped from Detective Lake’s voice, and what’s left over is an electric storm. One that’s buzzing around, about to strike.

 

#2 Let’s make this fast.” I held out my hand to her.

More precise:

β€œLet’s make this fast.” I held out my hand to the last person who needed to be saved.


 

Wringer washing machine, Pinterest

 

Do you remember old-time washers? A clothes line?

What tasks, like laundry, could be classified asΒ ordinary?

Any thoughts about writer’s tips displayed here?