by Cat Givens
Member since:
November 16, 2005

Zen Housekeeping

February 25, 2006 01:59 PM EST (Updated: February 25, 2006 03:21 PM EST)
views: 5 | comments: 21
Sunny outside
Chores in here

I pause to breathe
Inhale the beauty outside my window
And smile
Grateful for the clothes
Ready for the line

I don't care if it is only forty degrees,
My clothes are getting hung up
So they can bring this day
This lovely day
To my skin to wear
Tomorrow
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And I can look to the clouds
Send smiles and prayer on the wind
As I hang my clothes
In merry ritual
Happy to be out
Grateful just to be


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Comments: 21

Carol Voigts Feb 25, 2006, 2:08pm EST
Okay, I'm going to get off line and go vacuum Zen style. Thanks for the push.
P.A Moed Feb 25, 2006, 2:13pm EST
Right now I'm exploring the Zen of watching the Olympics!! I admire your ability to find peace even in housekeeping.
Cat Givens Feb 25, 2006, 2:30pm EST
Carol,
enjoy, dear! And PA, it is survival makes me find peace.
Brandon S. Feb 25, 2006, 2:47pm EST
I appreciate the sentiment, but no zen for me. Zen-ness and housework do not go hand in hand for me.
Tony Close Feb 25, 2006, 5:06pm EST
Inspiration from a line
wonder, does it apply to plumbing
can't stop to figure, worried about Cathy
Stephen Schneider Feb 25, 2006, 6:48pm EST
and I'm grateful in your being
0000-twobraincells-0000 Feb 25, 2006, 7:15pm EST
Don't fight the feeling.......RUN, DANCE, REJOICE, it could be a new version of 'line' dancing.....sway with the clothes in the wind....
Cat Givens Feb 25, 2006, 10:12pm EST
Wow......
you guys are so very cool. John, "line dancing" He he... nice.
Spiritguided Woman Feb 26, 2006, 12:14am EST
I like the "line dancing" comment also and I can appreciate your sharing with us a moment of peace in a very hectic world.
Helen W. Feb 26, 2006, 1:11am EST
I love "And I can look to the clouds
Send smiles and prayer on the wind". Beautiful!
Kathryn E. Feb 26, 2006, 3:15am EST
"As I hang my clothes in merry ritual happy to be out"....

The lines are simple, yet rich. Very, very nice, Cathy.
Meryl Johnson Feb 26, 2006, 9:39am EST
Beautiful poem. I envy you. I can't hang my laundry outside here in the city without having them get covered with soot.
Ron Hall Feb 26, 2006, 10:22am EST
In the movies, you always see clothes lines stretching between slum tenements - an image of the hard life. Thank you for seeing the beauty in it and passing that on. My family had a long, strong clothes line that ran about 30 yards to a bolt in a power pole. There might be the occasional pine needle falling into your shorts, but it was worth it!
Clare Stella Feb 26, 2006, 11:11am EST
"...bring this day this lovely day to my skin to wear tomorrow..." that sounds so nice. There is nothing quite like the smell of sun-dried clothes.
Beryl Singleton Bissell Feb 26, 2006, 1:12pm EST
How lovely, Cathy. I can almost smell that wondrous clean scent as you wear the clothes tomorrow that hung on the line outside today. Scented by sunshine.

It reminds me of all the Mondays we would hang the wet clothes out on the line when I was a nun. I remember looking up into that blue, blue sky through the needles of the towering white pine above me and rejoice in so much beauty. Even the ice-cube pain that would shoot through my hands and into my elbows in below freezing weather failed to inhibit that sense of soaring well being.
Edward Nudelman Feb 26, 2006, 1:36pm EST
Superb!
Gary Engstrom Feb 27, 2006, 11:04am EST
Some of my fondest childhood memories are running between the sunlit sheets hanging on the close line in the back yard. As I am reading your poem, I can smell the fresh laundry. As we ran between the sheets, we would shout "between the sheets" sayings and laughing hysterically – while not knowing at all the sexual implications of what we were saying. It wasn't until I was an adult, reading fortune cookie messages that the significance of the humor came to me: "You will find great adventure" – between the sheets.
Carolyn Madden Feb 28, 2006, 3:11am EST
Wonderful! I've just re-discovered the joys of the washing line. 336 days of sunshine a year weren't enough for me apparently, so i became a lazy-arse dryer person. I recently became laundry-challenged though and had to drag myself out to the line. "Happy to be out, Grateful just to be"

Beautifully put Cathy.
Dawn M Mar 2, 2006, 4:14pm EST
Brings back some wonderful childhood memories. Once upon a time that's all we had to dry our clothes on...the clothes line no matter what the temperature. It was a little extra work, but it did the job, and saved on that electric bill. Love the photo's esp. the clothesline at dawn.
Cat Givens Mar 2, 2006, 4:55pm EST
I'm glad you all have those wonderful thoughts and memories about this simple task. It is its own reward, is it not?
I wish Meryl could hang her clothes out without soot. Not hardly right, you know?

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