It All Comes Out in the Wash

October 19, 2006 - 3:57 PM by

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An ode to laundry by Savta Dotty:

Over the years, I have practiced just about every form of laundry, including washing it by hand at the local stream during a wonderful summer bicycling in France 50 years ago.

Laundry is such a good socio-economic barometer I am amazed that it hasn’t received more attention, an omission I hope to rectify with this little essay. Tell me who does your laundry and where, and your geographic, social, and economic positions are revealed.

Apart from my summer in France, my laundry was always done indoors. That is, the washing part was an indoor affair. The drying was done outdoors during my childhood because, at first, we didn’t own a dryer, and later, because my mother believed that sunshine did a better job. She may have also been pleased to have an excuse to visit our back yard, because she was not into gardening. I was allowed to hand her clothespins when I couldn’t reach anything else. Even now, in Israel the sun is also used for drying clothes by many middle-class people for economic, ecological or habitual reason. Given the local climate, hanging laundry outdoors certainly makes sense, although some upscale apartment buildings here do prohibit external laundry lines now. Very snobby. The most sensible new buildings confine the laundry lines to off-street windows, barricaded behind “modesty panels.”

But hanging laundry to dry does take more time than throwing it into the dryer, and anyone who lived or lives in a “time is money” culture as I did can’t imagine life without a dryer. Which is why I brought one with me when I immigrated, thus labeling me forever in the eyes of the natives as a typical spoiled rich American. Never mind that in the interim, many Israeli homes now include a dryer…they didn’t so much when I first arrived, another indicator that the Israeli pioneer era is passing.

There’s more, believe it or not. I never thought someone would have so much to say about laundry….!

Tags: • Category: Life 

Comments

2 Comments on It All Comes Out in the Wash

  1. savtadotty on Thu, Oct 19th 2006 7:01 PM

    2. Neither did I. Living here sure does encourage deep thinking!

  2. yuyu on Sat, Oct 21st 2006 12:57 PM

    3. Funny, i never even owned a washing machine and the wind and sun have always been my dryer.
    As a struggling student and artist, white metal machinery was way beyond my means, and even when things got somewhat better, the launderette simply seemed to make more sense as well as more fun.
    The wind coming in from the near-by sea is the quickest dryer one can wish or imagine.
    The olive oil based hand-made by my partners’s mother better than any detergent (although i will admit to the occasional bag of soap powder, when we forget to bring soap form the village).
    I guess i am still a little primitive :)

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