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Saturday, March 10, 2007

On a Weekend of Sunshine and Blustery Westerly Winds

I stripped all the bed linens this morning and laundered them in my favourite oceanic Bold for no other reason than the weatherman forecast a weekend of sunshine and blustery winds. By 7am the washing lines were hung with white sheets and pillow cases, blowing nearly horizontal in the westerly winds, billowing and cracking as they filled with air.

There are few things more lovely than sleeping in a bed of wind dried bedlinen. I remember a similar weekend last summer, and waking to the sounds of the white cotton curtains moving and rustling as they blew against the open windows. Every so often they were caught by the cool draughts and billowed up to the ceiling, letting in the bright white light of early summer mornings. I thought for a moment that I had woken up on the deck of a sailing ship on the high seas.
And watching my laundry, I thought of Pablo Neruda's love for Mathilde Urrutia, for Chile, for the ocean, offered to us through his 100 Love Sonnets. And this;



















Love, love, the clouds went up the tower of the sky
like triumphant washer women, and it all
glowed in blue, all like a single star,
the sea, the ship, the day were all exiled together.
... There's nothing here but light, quantities, clusters,
space opened by the graces of the wind
till it gives up the final secret of the foam.
Among so many blues - heavenly blues, sunken blues-
our eyes are a little confused: they can hardly divine
the powers of the air, the keys to the secrets in the sea.

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