10.8.09

Laundry day is the best day

Today I went to Kivenlahti to wash all my clothes. A couple of weeks ago I found an entrepeneur who has put up a service that I need: a self-service laundry. The owner of the place told me that she has started the laundry six months ago. A hope she will survive.

After my clothes were ready, I put them in my rucksacks, took the bus to Kauklahti, climbed to the hill beneath my studio, and hung all the wet clothes to an old clothes-line that I found there broken on the ground. I fixed the line, attached it between the trees, and hung my clothes to dry in the beautiful sunshine and mild August wind.

What a pleasure to have all that clean laundry hanging there in the midst of the trees on top of the hill. I sat on the cliff to worship the world that brings us laundry days. I was content to the world, and the world was content to me.

I remembered the days of my childhood, when all the mothers of the nearby houses hung their loundry in one common hillside, Saksansaari, in Helsinki. Long clothes-lines were attached between the trees, supported by poles. Where did those poles reside, when not in use?

I did not use any poles today, when I hung my laundry on a similar hill as Saksansaari.

Now the clothes are put in their places in my wardrobe. They did not go through a laundry mangel, which was a huge apparatus in 1960s at Kumpula, Helsinki. But that is another story.