Autumn sunny, sheltered garden; autumn fragrant with toasted scents of fallen plums and crispy leaves and tired compost. A sudden memory of the woman who first gifted me, many years ago, with clothes pins on which she had written words. Birds in a casual chatter. A hawk, high in the sky, in a not so casual soar. Warmth bouncing back from tree trunks and fence boards offset by the coolness of the wet clothing. The deep satisfaction of hanging to dry items one has made. The looked-forward-to pleasure of ‘harvesting’ linens line-dried.
The looked-forward-to gathering of many washcloths, warm and fluffy and dry from the dryer, because they will not dry completely outdoors on this autumn day and are a nuisance to take indoors, still damp, and drape, inconveniently, around the house.