3. Insanity

My time is today. – George Gershwin

When I worked full time I was busy, really busy. Physically and mentally busy. Up at 5:30, journal in hand, I was working out the stress, you see. I’d shower, dress and do a mad dash with Filo, than out the door.       I would leave the house each morning around 7:30 am and most days not return until close to 7:30 pm. I might have been at the office late or with a community group that I was volunteering with or meeting friends but lets just say those were full days. Than we would make dinner, catch up with each other, clean up the dishes and fall into bed. Sometimes, Tonya kept an even more grueling schedule that required a return to the office for a late night deadline or weeks away on production.

There was no time during the week for washing and drying laundry, even in the high speed, highly efficient appliances that sit conveniently in our kitchen. Laundry was a task that was sandwiched between the weekend errands. The coffee shop, the farmer’s and fish markets, the grocery or two groceries, the dry cleaners, the pet store, lunch out somewhere because we were starving and still had 5 places to go. You get the picture. Back than, I remember thinking about families who have had children and had to add soccer and ballet to the top of the list that we struggled to accomplish. Insane.

I would never have even discussed the concept of line drying laundry with Tonya in those days. “Are you crazy” I’d have said, “we never see each other and you want to spend the time we do have together doing WHAT?” Sure saving the planet is a noble thing, and I would have acknowledged that and asked who I could send a check to.  But you understand that in those days it was OUR TIME that was precious. There was little time for recreation or relaxation together or alone.

But like millions of others Americans, I was part of a corporate “rightsizing” in Fall 2008. It was not an unwelcome change in my life, I had been ready and planning for something new, only I hadn’t foreseen the worst economic downturn since the “Great Depression” (1929). There were many conversations in our home about what we wanted and needed to do differently, now. Now, that there was more time, than money. Now, that we weren’t both over scheduled. Now, that I had this new found flexibility.

Our conversations turned to things important to us, individually and together, and that turned into lists, which is common practice in our house. If it makes the list it generally gets done. The environment, made my list, also high on Tonya’s list, and therefore its on “Our List”. Reducing our impact on the environment could have happened in many ways, but we had ALREADY done the obvious ones including recycle, use water filters and not plastic bottles, change the light bulbs to fluorescence, turned the thermostat up in summer (74) and down in winter (67), stopped watering the lawn, grow our own vegetables to eliminate excess transportation and changed to Energy Star rated appliances in previous years.

Project 52, which rendered our mechanical drier obsolete, was the next step and a new level of involvement for me. It helped me to understand that my previous thinking and actions did not fit this moment. That doing something in the present would be far better than the promise I would do something in the future. The realization, that my time is now, the fridge benefit of line-dried laundry.

2. Elementary

“There is a blessing in the air”

– William Wordsworth

In the winter we quickly realized that line drying was to be a collaborative effort for us and for the elements. While some weeks we hung the laundry beneath the sunny, beautiful Carolina sky there were others that brought gray thick clouds or the whipping freezing winds of winter.  People new to line drying, including us, think that the sun is the only element contributing to the desired result of dry laundry however when you commit to render your gas or electric dryer obsolete you’re thrust into the awareness that the wind is an equally efficient drier.  As welcome as the wind might be for completing your laundry, it can be brutal on the participant. Consider your hands are holding damp cloth, at winter temperatures now add the winds chill, fingers can go numb instantly.

Just for the record, I’m not crazy about the cold mostly because I don’t like winter jackets and I don’t have a “hat-head”. I grew up in the Northeast, so my sense of cold is different than Tonyas’. I’ll wear a sweater out when she has on three layers, a wool coat and a toboggan.  Enough background, it was in one of our initial weeks of project 52, the wind was whipping and I was in my loungewear and slippers outside hanging laundry. I’m shivering and shaking, my eyes little puddles and here comes Tonya with the next load. After a bit of back and forth she insists, taking me inside to the sound of several sneezes. I add a coat, hat and gloves. Right than we made a pact that we would hang in tandem on days like this one. It was the awareness that in order to better care for the environment, we would have to take better care of us individually and each other. Doing so was in conscientious collaboration, the fringe benefit of lined dried laundry.

1. To make an impact start small

“Everything is perfect but there is a lot of room for improvement”

–Shunryn Suzuki

Getting started.

Sure it was the middle of the winter in North Carolina but we were determined to lessen our impact of the environment. So there was no time to wait. Tonya every ready to go the local DIY store was gone before I could retract my consent. After all the temperature was in the low 30’s in the morning hours of January 2009.

Prior to our formal commitment, we had determined the perfect location in the yard, a semi-private place, tucked between the deck and the swing on the edge of the yard. It would be totally out of sight for the couple, that live to our right and on the left it was well below the kitchen window view of the mother and daughter who have lived in that house for more than 40 years. The line would hang over the lawn and in summer the giant oak tree would provide us, the participants, some shade from the bright hot sun.

So on to our next important decision, permanent placement or retractable line?  Why would this be important you’re thinking, right? Well, we are to very visual women the aesthetics’ could make or break this project for us. We didn’t want to turn our beautiful yard with its many flowerbeds and garden spots into a utility room. We projected the distance of our laundry – how much space would it take to hang 3 to 4 washed loads, about the number we do each week. We measured the distance from the swing to the deck support beams. We figured it would take three lines. Knowing that and holding to the idea of keeping this space looking inviting we elected for the retractable. We later talked with others who line dry and learned that birds and squirrels become frequent visitors to permanent lines and the can become unwelcome guests. The retractable, allows for an element of surprise keeping them establishing a perch on your fresh laundry.

With these decisions in mind and a pinky-swear to lessen our impact on the environment by line-dry our laundry for 52 weeks, Tonya went to Lowe’s Home Improvement, where she bought 3-60ft retractable lines, two bags of wooden clothespins and an extra laundry basket. I sorted the laundry and started the first load. That is how this whole thing got started.