Laundry Time

On these warm days I make the deck my home. The morning is for brain work, the afternoon for weeding, watering and, as much as I like to put it off, sometimes for laundry. 

Yesterday I sat outside while a hot wind stirred up the scent of crisp, drying dresses and t-shirts — and also provided a little screen from the late-day sun. 

Is there a scent more redolent and comforting than that of laundry detergent? I remember my friend Elaine, who lived a few doors down from us on St. Ann Drive. (No, my mother did not name me after our street; they moved there when I was 3 and she had long since named me for her mother, Ann Veronica Donnelly.)

Elaine's mother, Mrs. Scully, had only an ancient wringer washer (the only one I've seen in use before or since) and therefore devoted a day to the scrubbing, rinsing, wringing and drying of clothes. I remember her in loose house dresses with stockings rolled down around her ankles. 

The Scully house was one of the few in the neighborhood to boast a basement, and you could enter it from the garage. It was always cool and smelled of Tide. Yesterday, I closed my eyes and imagined I was there.