Floral pjs flutter in the English breeze.
A dusty rose bralette coquettishly sways by a neat row of frilly white socks tightly clinched to the line by wooden pins.
Tie-dye yoga pants daintily dangle above the grass.
Out in the back garden, my freshly washed laundry dries on the clothesline, discretely strung behind a great tree, so my undergarments are cleverly concealed from the neighbors, and yet, in clear sight from the view of the kitchen window.
My gracious British hostess openly declares that she loves laundry, she has a flair for the domestic arts, and she keeps her bright blue eyes trained on the weather – a burst of sun means a dash to hang out the clothes, and an ominous appearance of grey-burdened clouds prompts a sprint to save before the moody splash of rain.
There is no dryer. There is an indoor pulley, a row of wooden planks above the stove, that also is part of the clothing drying routine.
“You just don’t dry the clothes when there’s something on the stove,” she informs me. “Otherwise, you’ll smell like your supper.”
Note taken.
“Did you know,” her husband, a life-long professional gardener who tends to trees and on Sundays rings the bells in the town’s Church tower, tells me, “that if Americans were to cut out their dryers, how much energy that would save?”
From the kitchen table, strewn with toast and homemade marmalades and brewed coffee, my white blouse waves from the line.
This is what I will remember.
I will remember the clothing line. I will remember the feeling of being slightly astonished about how sun-kissed fresh and gently clean my clothes will feel.
When I look back, on this extraordinary adventure abroad, I will remember the clothing line.
And I suppose, I should clarify about where I am and what I am doing, I’ll give the elevator pitch that I’ve perfected and delivered to new acquaintances met on trains, in the airport terminal waiting for delayed flights, in adjacent seat next to mine at the theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
A childhood friend from Kentucky fell in love with Ireland while studying abroad. So, she was courageous and followed her heart and did a post-graduate program at Trinity College and built a life for herself. And one night, through Tinder, she had a date with darling Irish lad at a pub, and immediately, it was something special, and so a few years later, they decided to marry in Dublin, and I was generously extended an invitation.
The invitation became a ticket to explore and experience the renowned theatre culture in the UK.
I joined the throngs of theatre-lovers at The Fringe, an International Theatre Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland (JK Rowling’s stomping ground).
And then, hopped a train to Market Drayton, England, to visit family friends (and to delight in the fine domestic art of laundry!).
I journeyed to Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-Upon-Avon to partake in a summer intensive with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
It’s been about a month of incredible travel.
I have seen so much, learned so much, walked so much. And now that the program has concluded, the applause has happened, the curtain drawn, I have gifted myself one more day here in Stratford (which truly does resemble England in Disneyworld’s Epcot). I’m pausing, as my British hostess knowingly shared with me, to catch up with my soul.
To catch up with my soul. It’s a line recorded and remembered from the pages of time, from the diary of an European traveling in South America, and he remarked that often he would observe that during his tedious treks, his Indigenous companions would pause in their journey to be still.
To catch up with their soul.
And hundreds of years later, I see them within my heart, within my mind’s eye practicing this lived wisdom. I honor these people, who close the gap of time and space, and whisper encouragement for me to do so now.
I soften into reflection at a café. I breathe into my belly. I relax into the strength of my spine.
Here’s what I remember, here’s what I will remember …
The decadent taste of homemade salted caramel brownies with cream and a plum-like sauce from backyard-picked damson berries.
Dancing in a tutu and singing out-loud the lyrics to “Mr. Brightside” at midnight on the wedding reception dance floor with groom’s Irish friends and family and all the visiting Americans.
Heart-glowing bliss as I sit in the audience of an engaging lecture on the performance history of Macbeth.
Standing rather nervously in one of the oldest graveyards in Edinburgh (this was a creative haunt for Rowling) for a walking Harry Potter Tour and learning that the author wanted Hugh Grant to play Professor Lockhart, but the actor wouldn’t dye his hair blonde, and it all worked out, because eventually the role was played by the fabulously talented Kenneth Branagh.
And then that moment that is mostly feeling, an impression, one experienced when I was in slow and quick motion.
I step out of the theatre, after just seeing a brilliant show called Falkland Sound, and it’s ignited an excitement in the core of my chest, a spark of a heart-racing idea to be a playwright. I step out into the milky evening to stroll, or really float, back to my hotel, and glance up to see a full “blue moon” peeking through the clouds and there’s a contented click, a peacefulness that is a recognition that all is well, that I am right where I am supposed to be, and a deep squeeze of appreciation for this moment of my life.
And then … the clothesline.
Because the clothesline is a metaphor for how I want to live.
The simplicity and the creative art of a life well-lived, a presence that enlivens the mundane details attended to, a certain beauty that adorns the routine.
There’s breathing space here … in this culture. People take their time. There’s a respect and adoration for the theatre and for literature that is wholesome and soul-enriching.
There’s a realness here – apparent in the quality of the food (organic blueberries found in corner convenience stores) and a healthy vitality expressed in faces and from bodies that have not been exposed to the multitude of preservatives and questionable ingredients that insidiously infiltrate the American food supply and our hygiene and beauty products.
And this realness, this simplicity, this domestic art of living … I see it with my starch cleaned white blouse (the one I feared I had forever stained with a mysterious dirty mark … maybe from my purse?) waving, beckoning, nodding that is what I remember because it already lives within me. It’s not something I will have to strain to recreate. It’s more like a recognition, and one I can follow, like a bread crumb, as I head home … back to the states.
