The Real Reason It's Good to Have a Dryer
Two years ago, I participated in a letter exchange. In my ad, I wrote that I liked laundry lines and a bit about my life.
You wouldn't believe how many letters I got. What’s more, the people who wrote to me all mentioned that they also liked laundry lines.
I don't enjoy hanging the laundry, regardless of whether I hang it outside or inside. However, I really hate these laundry racks you vow to dutifully put away when you are not using them. Inevitably, they take up permanent residence in your living room.
No matter how good you promise yourself you'll be, someday, you will stop folding away the rack. And then it just sits there and reminds you that you clearly do not have everything together. At all.
What I love about laundry lines is the smell the linens have when you bring them in. There is nothing better than air-dried sheets or clothes. The fresh air will stay in the fabric for weeks. It's like storing that perfectly breezy summer day in your favorite sweater ready for you to pull out and sink into whenever you need some sunny memories.
I have resisted getting a dryer for a long time now. Mostly, because I love the idea of air-dried laundry. What's funny is that I don't even have laundry lines outside where I live. Instead, I did concede to one of those evil racks that I kept on the balcony.
I guess I just needed some time and the inconvenience of freezing in the laundry room while hanging the clothes in the winter to slowly let go of my highly romanticized idea of what the laundry should be.
Doing laundry always went alright for a few weeks at a time, and then I’d let it pile up. Inevitably, I'd get distracted or really busy someday and forget that there was wet laundry in the machine. Sometimes, I forgot because it was so late in the day that I'd already gone to bed.
I solved this last problem by limiting myself to one load of laundry a day so as not to use up all my domestic energy all at once. I even wrote about it on this blog at the time!
Thankfully, I finally realized that I have been keeping a cause of frustration in my life due to some romantic notion and a tentative connection to my childhood. I have fond memories of helping my mother do the laundry and I recall that I really liked the big sheets on the line. I loved playing hide and seek in them.
It finally dawned on me that I would never, ever get that same experience while I live in this house. There is no laundry yard with communal laundry lines - a very common thing in the areas where I grew up. Thanks to dryers, most buildings don't even have a laundry room (or laundry kitchen as we call it) in the basement anymore.
So, unless I invite myself over to some unsuspecting friend's house just to put up laundry lines in their garden, there will be no hiding between softly flowing sheets!
Instead, I had the exact "rack-in-the-way" situation that I had so passionately tried to avoid.
So I gave in and got a dryer.
And, what can I say, i is glorious.
There are the obvious benefits, of course. It saves time and the towels get really, really soft.
But the thing I love most — and no laundry line can ever beat this — is that while I still don't have to burst through the laundry, I CAN if I want to!
Whenever the domestic spirit moves, I can do six or seven loads of laundry in one day, get everything done, and wash some extra linens and curtains that only need it once a blue moon!
Ha! I had never thought of that.
Sometimes, we hold on to discomfort because of some romantic or antiquated idea. Some impracticalities are ties to our childhood memories, too. That's perfectly fine, but often, we hold onto them for longer than is reasonable.
Besides, if I ever live in a place with a good spot, I can still have a laundry line. Just to see the sheets flutter in the breeze.
P.S. I gave away the rack and could not be happier.
