Musings from Marilyn

Posts Tagged ‘seasons’

Here it is, once again, that annual event that we all go through together whether we like it or not: the turning of the clock into the new year.  I’ve always liked the feeling of ending the old, and starting anew with a fresh clean slate.  Even though we carry our bag of emotions, concerns and worries with us into the new year, there is that magical moment when the clock strikes midnight when all things seem possible, albeit fleetingly.

I am spending New Years Eve home alone, and feeling very okay with it.  Almost giddy!   I guess I’ve reached a point in my life where reveling with mostly strangers at parties, and driving in the dead of night trying to avoid drunk drivers doesn’t have the appeal it once did.  In fact, I was just thinking about all the New Year’s Eve parties that I’ve attended over the years that never quite lived up to the “expectation” of having a blissfully ecstatic time.  Didn’t really matter if I was single, dating, married, engaged, or divorcing at the time… it all felt the same.

So I’ve learned to just approach New Year’s Eve from a neutral standpoint.  Read a good book, listen to music, make Hoppin’ John and cornbread, watch the ball drop from the Space Needle, sip some champagne, watch the Marx Brothers movie marathon… and make NO resolutions! 

“Youth is when you’re allowed to stay up on New Year’s Eve.  Middle age is when you’re forced to.”  ~Bill Vaughn

Happy 2012!

~Marilyn Huttunen

When you’re a 100% year-round air dryer/clothesline user like myself,  one must pay much more attention to the ever-changing weather conditions.   Good thing that I’m a bit of a weather geek;  I actually like tracking the weather!  This comes in handy for determining the ideal conditions and placement of drying the laundry outside, or whether to dry it inside.

Autumn weather gets tricky; the days are shorter,and it gets colder and rainier.  Even if it is sunny, it can lull me into a false sense of drying expectation when I hang the clothes on the line.  It just has that nip in the air, the sun is lower, and there is enough humidity (at least here in the Pacific Northwest) to delay the drying a great deal.  I can hang laundry on my backyard line early in the morning, and late in the afternoon it is still damp.  Thus begins the ol’ clothesline switcharoo.  I have to take down all the laundry from the clothesline and then put it on drying racks inside the house.  Which is kind of a hassle, I must admit.

Even though it is a bit more work, one advantage is that the laundry has spent the day soaking up all that deliciously heady autumn air smell outside.  When I place it on the racks inside to finish drying, the poignant smell fills the air.  There is just something so wonderful about the outside-dried smell.  It changes with the seasons too.  Autumn smells different than summer, which smells different than spring or winter.  No man-made chemical scent could ever top Mother Nature’s!

I’m still trying to hold onto outside drying as much as I can, even though the attempt is futile at times.  Soon I will be drying inside full-time for the winter;  drying racks will be filling my kitchen once more.  But that too, is kind of charming in it’s own way.  One must definitely be adaptable to be an air-dryer!

“Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” – George Eliot

~Marilyn

I love finding wacky ads in vintage women’s magazines, especially the laundry soap ads.  Take for example, this fabulous DUZ ad from the November 1949 Woman’s Day magazine.  It has all the attributes that I love in an ad; colorful drawing, bold lettering, exclamation points, and a wildly happy housewife, ecstatic over her DUZ detergent!  And being a clothesline enthusiast, I love the fact that not only does the housewife have her laundry on a clothesline, there is also clothesline pictured on the DUZ box.  Double the fun!  I almost reach this state of elation when I hang out my clothes… almost.  I cede to artistic license on the part of the copywriters, but I do have fun!

I really love clotheslines.  They genuinely make me happy.  There is nothing more gratifying than seeing my laundry out on the line, soaking up the sunshine and swaying in the breeze.  It must be something primal, since all of our ancestors from the dawn of time air-dried their laundry.  I actually look forward to those laundry days when the weather is nice enough to hang outside, and Mother Nature can do her business of  drying the clothes.  During inclement weather I dry inside on drying racks.  It’s sufficient and does the job, but it just doesn’t quite have the joie de vivre of using an outdoor clothesline.

The poignant scent of line-dried laundry.  There is nothing like it.  It changes with the seasons, picking up the nuances in the air.  The cold, ozone-y smell in the winter, the fresh cool scent of spring, the sunshiny scent of summer, and the brisk aroma of fall.  All subtly different, but with that unmistakable underlying familiarity, no matter the season.  That alone is reason enough to keep me air-drying.

This is my clothesline in my backyard, taken in the midst of a heatwave last summer.  Summer is so phenomenal for drying.   I like to time how long it takes to dry in the heat.  I think the record for my laundry drying was just one hour, in over 100 degree heat.  But mostly I just like to look at the clothes hanging.  It is like hanging art; installation art, if you will.  In any event, it makes me happy.  And if I get whipped up into a frenzy like the DUZ housewife, so be it!

Happy drying!

Marilyn

For the past week or so here in the Pacific Northwest, we’ve have the most spectacularly gorgeous weather!  Atypical brilliant sunshine and warm, balmy temperatures.  The plants are budding, the lawn is growing, and the pollen is flying!  This has created quite a dichotomy in me, and has me a bit befuddled.  It’s weird watching the Winter Olympics when it feels like spring.  Of course, Vancouver B.C. is having the same kind of weather so it makes it even stranger.  It is typical El Nino year weather.

The allergy season has now begun at least 2 months earlier than normal.  The swollen eyes, sinus pressure, sneezing, and skin rashes have made a reappearance in me, as well as a lot of others.  I am hoping that we will get it done and over with now, and won’t have to put up with it again when it actually is spring!  There is always a trade-off, it seems.

I have been taking advantage of the great drying weather by using my clothesline once again.  It feels good to have outdoor-dried laundry…and oh, the sweet smell!  It dries so much faster outside, and gives me a reprieve by ridding my house of the indoor drying racks temporarily.

Still, for those of us who are used to months and months of dark, cloudy, gray, rainy days it is quite a transition.  Some of us don’t know how to react to so much sunshine.  Are we supposed to be all happy now?  We don’t have the excuse of gloomy weather if we are in a grumpy mood!  I have been walking every day… no sitting out for bad weather lately either.

My lawn is growing, well…like a weed.  My neighbors have been out in full force for weeks, mowing their lawns dutifully.  I have managed to elude this by just not mowing quite yet.  I usually enjoy the respite I get in winter from not mowing the lawn.  I am not ready to start the mowing process yet – it’s technically still winter.  So shaggy lawn it is.  Sorry, neighbors!

But this I know for sure – this too, shall pass.  Soon the more typical gray dankness will  envelope us.  So endure the glorious weather for a bit longer?  I guess I must.

~Marilyn

I have been feeling wistful the last few days, and I think it’s because I’m realizing that summer is starting it’s slow fade into autumn.  The days are not as long, and the sun is setting markedly earlier.  It is still hot, but not that burning intense mid-summer heat.  The leaves are starting to turn on my maple trees, and the blackberries are ripening fast.

I am realizing more and more how much I really love summer.  The long days and brilliant light are so treasured!  The Pacific Northwest has months and months of unending gray dampness, so the sun is especially welcome.  I can dry my clothes outside on the clothesline,  I don’t have to turn on the heat, and rarely even turn on the lights.  I wear as few clothes as possible and don’t have to worry about layering, socks, and shoes. It is just a simpler lifestyle all around.

But my fashion magazine ‘Fall Fashion Spectacular!’ issues have been arriving at a steady clip, advising me what I absolutely need to be wearing this fall (’80s-style sequined shoulder-padded mini dresses, no thank you…).  School schedules and supply lists for my son are coming too.  The inevitably of fall is upon me.  I don’t know how much more I can live in denial of that fact!

I never been too great at transition points.  I always get thrown off for awhile, and a little sad.  Once I’m past the delicate tricky part, I can delve into change with great gusto, but I have to go through a little poignancy in the meanwhile.   I guess it’s just a part of life of living in a place with four distinct seasons, and me being a more sensitive sort.  It pays to just go along with your feelings sometimes.

While I will soon bid the long days of summer adieu, I’ll hold onto and enjoy the last vestiges of light and warmth while it is still here.  I actually do enjoy fall in all it’s glory.  But let me loll in summertime for a while longer.

Marilyn