Today’s post was meant to be a nod to ‘Monday Motivation,’ and not necessarily a diatribe against never-ending laundry.
However, in an unlikely turn of writing events, it has somehow ended up being…both.
For context, I yesterday happened across an ‘influencer’ on Instagram, who revealed how she’d been criticised for ‘romanticising’ something as dull as hanging washing on a line.
Her defence, was that the washing was representative of the glorious ‘in-betweens’ (ordinary moments) that so often fall between the cracks of life’s more stand-out moments, but which are no less important to the bigger picture experience.
Admittedly, my washing line was a far cry from her particular laundry-blowing-in-the-Tuscan-hillside aesthetic, but still, I could concede she had a point.
An upwards glance (blue sky!!), and a brief sharpening of the senses (birds, tweeting, all-around), and the mundanity of the washing-hanging experience doesn’t cut nearly so deep.
This realisation - it tied in with something I’d heard Jimmy Carr speak about recently on the topic of ‘life dysmorphia,’ and how it is responsible for the mass underappreciation of simple pleasures and luxuries.
Now I’m not saying that chores are a ‘luxury’ per se, or that hanging washing is a tonic! Let’s certainly not go down that slippery toxic positivity slope!
However, might it be that the visible and invisible loads which seem to become heavier with advancing age (the washing, the tidying and the general life admin’ing!) could potentially lead to greater pragmatism in other aspects of life.
For example, in terms of ‘hobbies.’
Incidental hobbying, as I shall call it, means building up small bouts of creativity and leisure throughout the day (in between all the washing, and tidying, and washing!), and it feeds into the narrative which says something is always better than nothing.
Oftentimes, as well, the sum of these small, token efforts is more than would be achieved without the same time constraints, and without the subsequent hyper-focus.
As an example, before my piano broke a month ago, I was consciously and intentionally squeezing (and I mean squeezing!) in 2-5 minutes a day, playing out the same tunes, on repeat. It was usually while the kettle was boiling, or if I had 5 minutes to spare, between shutting down my computer, and heading on the school run.
It was a bare minimum, scraping-the-bottom-of-the-barrel approach to having a hobby, but it sufficed for something. A feeling, perhaps, more so than any measurable gains in skill or creativity.
It’s a bit of a fanciful idea, this one that lack of time owing to chores, might somehow be an ally in one’s musical ambitions, and ultimately self-improvement.
What is equally speculative - but just as intriguing - is the ‘lesser-evilism’ that can be applied to laundry-hanging.
In other words, the theory that putting out the umpteenth load of washing, might be sparing of an even more monotonous task. A task which perhaps DOESN’T have the added bonus of fresh air and nature exposure.
I do take comfort in this possibility, almost as much as I do in knowing that not even the likes of George Clooney, are immune from the all-consuming drudgery of domesticity!
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