I was hanging laundry out on the clothesline the other day and it struck me that what I was doing--a simple act, so common when I was a kid--is now VERY unusual.
I have an old family photograph, probably taken 50 years ago by my dad, of my mom hanging laundry out to dry. The photograph is a Kodachrome transparency, and it is aging in the most beautiful way. The image, to me, is perfect.
Leah and I don’t hang our laundry out because we long to relive the carefree days of a time now past. Computers make it possible for us to work from offices we have set up in our home (if we were trying to live in the past or were Amish-wannabes, we wouldn’t have computers, would we?) In the course of our telecommuting, at-home workdays, it’s very easy to step outside for a few minutes and hang laundry on the clothesline. If a rain shower moves in, we can run out and take the clothes down again. We hang the laundry outside because we can.
In the modern, busy lives most Americans lead, I suspect an electric or gas clothes dryer is considered a necessity. Folks leave for work early in the morning and come home exhausted at night. Who on earth has TIME to hang clothes out?
I recently heard an amazing and telling story: NBC News reported that, for the first time in history, Toyota has moved ahead of General Motors in worldwide sales. NBC went on to say that GM's woes have partly been attributed to the slumping US housing market. Americans, it appears, are now reluctant to take on home equity loans or 2nd mortgages so that they can afford GM’s expensive SUVs.
Do we live to work, or work to live? After 30-plus years of life in photography, it does seem to me that TIME is the Big Deal in my life. The photographs that matter to me can be made in 1/60th of a second, but the seeing of something fleeting could be missed in the rush-rush of a cluttered life.
