Thinking Can Wait

I’m ironing again.

Almost exactly a year ago, when feeling kind of overwhelmed, sort of stressed, I wrote about how ironing helps me chill out.

And, this week, I find myself ironing again, for the same therapeutic reasons.

I had what was, for me, a full and hectic week last week. A number of you suggested I needed to get back to making and creating and crafting, as a way to return to bliss.

I think you’re right . . . next week. But this week, even thinking about making something seems too much.

And, so, I found my iron, the one from the garage sale that gets really hot and has no steam function at all.

I found the big spray bottle, the one I sometimes use to stop naughty cats in their tracks.

I set up my ridiculously expensive ironing board, the one I treated myself to. I tell myself I’m worth it.

I dug in the pile of clean but mussy linens, and I found ones that make me smile. First, a set of heavy, lush damask napkins that make me think of being pampered.

Next, another set of damask napkins, with a pale pink stripe—they press up beautifully and say “garden party” to me.

Then, for fun, some jazzy, mid-century dishtowels.

There are linens in my piles that speak to any mood, any need.

Slowly, methodically, I iron. The heat and steam are blown away by a breeze coming in off the lake.

The pile of crumpled, disordered, hectic fabrics shrinks.

The stack of beautiful, orderly, crisp linens grows.

To paraphrase the old saying, “Sometimes I irons and thinks and sometimes I just irons.”

This week, I’m focusing on just ironing. Thinking can wait.

Good Fences Make . . . Us Human

Do you have a fence where you live? I bet you do, even if it’s very basic. Did you choose it or was it there when you moved in? What is your fence for? Is it meant to keep your pets in the yard? To give you privacy from neighbors? To add to the “look” of your home? Is it your ideal fence?

I love a good fence. I don’t think of fences as “keeping out” or “keeping in” so much as establishing boundaries that humans seem to want and need. In addition, I think we communicate about who we are by the fences we build and maintain.

On the farm of my youth, it was different. We needed our fences. Some were made of stone, not because it was attractive or especially great wall-building material, but because the soil was poor and farmers needed to pick stone out of the fields, to prepare the ground for planting. Stone walls are often where they are because, simply put, the farmers needed a place to put the stones. The more miles of stone wall you see on a farm, the worse the soil used to be.

A lot of the fences on the farm were barbed wire or electrical fences, again for practical purposes. I remember lessons in how to cross a barbed wire fence safely, and how to help another person get through. Foot on the lowest wire, spaced between the barbs, push down. Hand on the next higher wire, spaced between the barbs, pull up. Watch other person climb gingerly through and place hand on head to protect head from barbs. My sister and I did this 1000 times as we rambled.

These fences were meant to keep the cows where we could find them, and the cows were always getting out. Snowmobilers and hunters were the bane of the farmers’ existence—they would cut barbed wire and electric fences to get where they wanted to go.

And then, in the spring, when the cows were let out of the barn and their long winter incarceration, they would find every hole in every fence. Usually in the evening, when Lost in Space was on TV. Right about the time the Robot would intone “Danger, Will Robinson, danger,” my sister and I would be called to go out and help corral the animals again. And we’d never know what happened to Will Robinson. I’ve been bitter toward snowmobilers and hunters ever since.

For most of us, in the 21^st century, our fences are no longer meant to keep the cattle home or keep undesirables out—we have fences to mark our spaces, solve a problem, and to communicate about who we are.

At our house we use tall cedar hedges next to the road as a fence; they were here when we moved in but we maintain them carefully because we like the look and they give tons of privacy.

We use a stretch of fence along the driveway, made of old cedar split rails, to say, “enjoy our yard but from a distance” but also to communicate “we fit in” and “we like it ‘old-school’.” The split rail fence is very common in rural upstate New York, and traditional. We got the rails for an old farmer, who had been clearing a long-overgrown piece of land, and found them stacked up along the side. One of his ancestors had meant to build a fence and never did get around to it. We now enjoy the fruit of his labors, and that special look, at our place.

If you have any doubt about this idea that we use fences to communicate about who we are, check out the number of boards on Pinterest that are dedicated to fences. I don’t know why anything about Pinterest would surprise me, but I was astounded by the extent to which people are establishing fence wishlists!

My favorite fence, for sheer impractical exuberance, as well as for fitting into its environment and telling us something about the owner, is this spectacular Adirondack twig fence (here and at beginning of post).

On a small road, in the middle of nowhere, someone put a lot of energy into this cedar fence. This fence does what fences do—marks territory and says, “This is mine,” but it says so much more about the person who built it. He (or she) took a considerable amount of time to make a fence that communicates about a commitment to a traditional Adirondack vernacular of using limbs and twigs as decoration on furniture and homes. It’s rustic, but never plain. It also, to me, communicates a sense of humor and whimsy. It seems designed to make a statement and to make passersby smile. It is certainly designed to be noticed!

So, what does your ideal fence tell us about you? Are you homey and nostalgic, loving a white picket fence? Are you private and maybe a little introverted, looking for a high fence that blocks prying eyes? Are you creative and artsy? Laid back and rustic? Show me your fence and I’ll tell you who you are!

On Edge? Iron!

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2013/08/19/daily-prompt-activity/

I love to iron. Yes, you heard me right. When my life feels a little jumbled and disordered, crumpled like an old sheet, I iron.

I’m not on edge too often. I have an easy life, mostly free from drama. When I get tense, it’s usually because I feel like I have a lot to do, so the usual methods of relaxation simply don’t work for me. If I try to “relax relax,” I fidget and worry, completely preoccupied with the things I should be doing.

So, I’ve figured out I need to “work relax,” I need to do something that counts as work but is mindless and repetitive and, yes, relaxing.

So, I iron. As I iron, my mind can wander freely. I can sort through all those things I think need to be done, and figure out a plan for accomplishing them. I can plan a blog post. I can gain perspective.

I don’t iron shirts or ruffles or anything fussy. I iron tablecloths and napkins and big expanses of linen. I take big messy messes and, with a few sweeps of my iron and squirts of my spray bottle, turn the messy messes into gleaming, crisp fields of smoothness.

Hey, you meditate your way. I’ll meditate mine. And I’ll wish that all problems were as easy to solve as wrinkled linens!