Taken from a short and sweet book of insights about life, love and loss by Mary McEvoy…

As life goes on, the clothesline diminishes again, families part, spouses leave or die. The clothesline now displays a gender specific wardrobe of perhaps an adventurous widow, or an ordered man on his own in neat contentment. I don’t find this sad because it just means life goes on and has many phases, and each phase has its meaning and purpose. It must be lived and so many people live it so well.

But what strikes me most about the clothes on the line is their fragility. They are like us who wear them, ordinary, lovely, mundane and heroic, blown and buffeted, animated by that which we cannot see.

Ordinary Beauty: Meaningful Moments in Everyday Life by Mary McEvoy