This is not another post on how to cope with pandemic anxiety or how to best manage your time in social isolation. I have nothing new to say about that, and frankly, the online “noise” is getting to me. So I’ll keep this short.
Away from my normal life, I find myself looking at homemaking in a different way. No longer just troublesome chores, I embrace their quiet safety. I push the vacuum through sunlight and shadows in the corner where stripes of light pass through the blinds and slant over the rocking chair. I feel the goodness of simple work.
Ironing, the smell of steam on cotton takes me to my mother’s muslin-covered ironing board and the sprinkler bottle she kept nearby. The whir of my sewing machine comforts me.
One long ago afternoon, I passed a little shop on the side of a hill. The door was open to the spring air and half a dozen women sat before small black machines, turning the wheel with one hand, guiding fabric with the other. The hum of small motors made me stop and look. I feel at one with them now, doing what I know how to do, what my mother did, and her mother too.
A line from a Mary Oliver poem is on my fridge: “why should I not sit, every morning of my life, on the hillside, looking into the shining world?” She goes on to say that delight inspires action. We are not to sit on the hillside all day. But for now, in this holy moment, let me pause. Let me look.
Have you found, while at home, a small moment of delight? Does it remind you of someone or some other time? Share it below and I’ll put your name in the drawing for Michael Ondaatje’s novel, Warlight, a book set in 1945 England with some very mysterious characters.
The winner of last month’s drawing is Jeanne Guy. She wins a copy of This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. Congratulations, Jeanne, and thanks for your comment!
16 thoughts on “Hot Steam on Cotton”
Judith Heffernan Elmy
Loved it; brought my heart back to my mother, in tears.
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lindawis
Thanks, Judy. They went through a lot in their day.
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Kathryn
Memories of the mangle ironer and slightly singed fingertips – but oh that steam coming from Father’s white shirts…
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lindawis
So you have a sweet memory too! Thanks for sharing it.
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Carolyn Ferris Gombosi
Thank you – this also brought me back to another time and place…My mother did a lot of sewing, and I learned some basics. I don’t sew now, but can’t help thinking of everyone who is helping by making masks now, “in real time”…. PS: I have listened to Warlight (audiobook); it really pulls one in!
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lindawis
Hi, Carolyn, I’m making a few masks myself, not as fast as some of my friends tho. I’d be interested in your thoughts on Warlight.
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bsmiskoaolcom
Reading this article reminds me of simpler, less harried times. WWII was over and folks were settling in, re-nesting and building new lives built on homeland and hope. This was the time of my youth when patterns and stitching and foot-pedal sewing machines were part of the fabric of our days. I think my blood pressure went down during the reading of your piece, so thank you, Linda. Bobbi (I can’t seem to get in to comment any longer. Don’t have a password, so I copied my comment and placed here.)
Sent from my iPhone
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lindawis
Thanks for persisting in getting your comment on here, Bobbi! And yes, what a memory trigger this time is! Patterns, and fabric and the postwar years. Lots to write about!
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Judy Mitten
I remember wanting to be like my mother and begging her to let me iron when I was four years old. She let me do a few handkerchiefs, and of course I burned myself. When I was older I remember the joy of following the proper steps in ironing a shirt or blouse – collar, cuffs, sleeves, shoulders, and finally, the front and back panels. Now I avoid buying clothes hat require extensive maintenance, but I do miss the rhythm of a job done right.
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lindawis
You just reminded me that I had a toy ironing board and iron. Do they even make them anymore? 😉
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judyalter
Kathryn, oh the mangle! Memories of my mom sitting at it, in the dingy basement of our Chicago townhouse, sweating over sheets and pillowcases and napkins. Another day in time, another way of life. And yes, Linda/w, I can smell it.
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lindawis
Sounds like a job I wouldn’t want to do today, mindful or not! Our mothers were hard workers, no doubt about it.
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Susan J. Tweit
What a lovely post, Linda, with such deep connections to the kind of calm and contentment we can find in everyday tasks if we slow down and let ourselves just “be” with what we are doing. “When I am washing the dishes,” says Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Naht Hanh, “I am washing the dishes.” For me, the smell is my Cinnabar perfume, which I sprinkled into my bath this morning, and that spicy, earthy fragrance summoned my mother’s voice from early childhood, asking what “flavor” I wanted my bath to be, before she spritzed whichever perfume I chose into the hot water.
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lindawis
Such a sweet memory, Susan! I like the idea of perfuming the bath water. Will try it soon!
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Jeanne Kane
This is wonderful! Your writing about the scent of the ironing board and steam on cotton brought back those memories for me. And since yesterday was Dyngus Day, I was remembering my mother’s water bottle, that she used for ironing. She also used this water bottle to sprinkle us on Dyngus Day!
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lindawis
Funny, Jeanne! I remember Dyngus Day but I never got sprinkled!
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