MEMORIES ON LINE
I cannot part with my cleaning rags. I never realized what they meant to me until one hot summer day when, once again, newly washed and still fragrant with lemon oil, they were blowing in the breeze above my patio, like plastic triangles around a used car lot. “Why?” My puzzled husband asked, looking quizzically at the clothesline. “I appreciate your frugality, but we can afford paper towels.”
It never occured to me that anyone, especially my dear spouse, who I believe understands me like no one else, would ever question my use of my cleaning rags. But then, never had it occured to my Self to question why I use them--and save them.
Now, confronted with my eccentricity, I looked at the line, studying the colored tatters .n“Honey,” I countered, “Look, there are the first pair of big girl pants the girls wore.” (The youngest is now 27). “And down there, that one--that’s the flannel shirt I bought in l976 in Paris at the fancy department store.” (The name of which has gone long before the sleeve.) “But these-- these are really good ones. These are the towels I got when I was first married.” (To my first husband)
Kind soul that he is, my second husband, nodded. How could he really fathom that this clothesline held pieces of my life story. And though I myself could not tell him what every piece of cloth represented, I knew with surety that I could not be parted from these bits and pieces of my life.
I have a friend who redecorates her house at the drop of a hat. When things get that used look, they are banished or vanish. Perhaps I am just a sentimental type. Or maybe by touching and using these scraps of my past, I, on some deep cellular level, am digesting where I have been, who I have been becoming, and what my life has been about.
For example, take the light blue rags with the pink bunnies and white lambies on them. I have several of these. These are particuraly special to me, having been given to my daughters when they were little by the woman their father married after we were divorced.
The children had hated those nighties; had thought they were ugly and too babyish. I had thought they were kind of cute and soft, but secretly had been quite satisfied that they were rejecting one of Her gifts. They hadn’t wanted to give the nighties back, but rather had buried them deep in the archeological sites that were their rooms, to be unearthed by me when they had long passed the age to even consider wearing them; and I was reasonably past my resentment of their step mother.
“Why not?” I had thought. “They look warm enough, and my other flannel nighties are ready to be made into rags.” For years I wore those nighties, reveling in the reminder of my little girls, now growing up so fast. Wearily slipping into the lambie and bunnie flannels, I had derived an odd sort of comfort, similar to the feeling I get when a nurse in a doctor’s office is wearing a medical coat with baby cartoon animals on it.
Now years later, the comfort is different. With a wad of furniture polish or some antibacterial something or other on top of a bunnie’s or lambie’s worn face, I remember what it took to become okay with his second marriage. I remember what it took to not ache when my girls came home with stories of the fun they had had with Daddy and with Her. I remember that I survived on my own, went on with my life--and thrived.
As I rub the furniture, the counters, the floors, I seem to be burnishing the memories into my own being of what strength I had used to come through a divorce and all the changes that brings into a woman’s life-- the doors closing, the openings, the tears, the heartaches; the unexpected joys and victories.
“I don’t need to use paper towels.” I said to him. “They are expensive, and ...besides, my rags remind me of things.” I paused a moment. “Hon, you remember that shirt I got you the first Christmas we were together?”
“Yes.....” He looked at me sideways.
“It’s starting to look a little worn.” (It’s been eight years.)
He laughed his knowing laugh, and I set about taking the wash off line.