Hanging laundry out to dry has a spiritual dimension, writes Schoharie-based farmer Shannon Hayes in an essay in Yes! Magazine. (The New York Times did a great profile of Hayes in 2007.)
Hayes is already a prolific cookbook author ("The Grassfed Gourmet," "The Farmer and the Grill"), and this year she expanded her intellectual territory by penning "Radical Homemakers," a manifesto about abandoning the rat race in favor of domesticity. And that, as she writes in Yes!, means ditching the dryer:
Of course everyone would like to hang out the laundry. But many people don’t do it. They’re too busy. Thus, the commitment to hanging out the laundry represents a commitment to slowing down—it means starting to align one’s daily household activity with the rhythms of nature. In my mind, hanging out the laundry moved from being a simple chore to being an act of meditation and reflection on a deeper, more profound commitment that a person wanted to make. Thus, draping shirts and socks on a clothesline wasn’t just about getting a chore done; it represented the new, sane world so many of us are working to create. Every time a person sticks a clothespin on a pair of undies, he or she is saying, “I want a better world. And I’m willing to do what it takes.” Laundry may be a simple first step, but it ultimately leads to something bigger.
Hayes goes on to decry zoning codes that prohibit line-drying and advocates a new kind of civil disobedience:
Worrying about our planet while adhering to local zoning codes or social norms forbidding ecologically sensible behavior is a recipe for disaster. Such laws require citizens to commit an ecological injustice by using a disproportionate share of our Earth’s resources. They scream out for civil disobedience. As Thoreau reminds us, “break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.” Go on and live dangerously. Hang out the wash.
Photo of clothesline by Flickr user 7-by-7. Some rights reserved.
