hanging up clothes

It's midnight in Ibiza, maybe later. You are carrying a basket of wet clothes to be hung. The clothesline is attached to a tree on one side, I forget what is on the other. We hang up your clothes. Together in the dark. There is light coming from the house, from the terrace where everything that doesn't happen in the kitchen happens. Enough light to hang up clothes. Together.

You show me how to hang up your t-shirts and jeans upside down to avoid tedious ironing once they dry. I think, simultaneously, wow, anal, and hmm, cool tip. I laugh and you make a comment about how it may be anal but it saves time later. Smiling, hanging up clothes, one clothespin at a time, in the front yard with you.

Fast-forward to Rio, Saturday night. I'd been out all day with friends and left wet clothes in the washing machine. I walked downstairs, through the internal courtyard which has a hip-level divider made of small potted palm trees and other tropical plants. Then up a few concrete stairs to where the clothesline is kept.

The far wall belongs to a family who are cooking dinner while I hang clothes. Bubbling sounds from the stove filter out the window and into the small washing area. I pick up my pink cordoroys and attempt to hang them like we did in Ibiza. Together in the dark. They are still too wet, and the clothespins in Brazil must be different than Spain. I have to fold them over the line. And think to myself they will have to be ironed. Which makes me smile. Which makes me think of you. With saudade.

I go back upstairs to my flat, and start to rummage around the kitchen looking for a snack to have with the coffee I'm making for Clarissa and I. Until I realize that I'm not really looking for a snack. I'm looking for you. But you're not in the kitchen. You're in Ibiza. But I have the color of your jeans fresh in my mind, and how the legs looked upside down, like they were worn by invisible people doing handstands in the dark, in your front yard. Which makes me smile.