October's New Pajamas

We got new pajamas from Aunt Cynthia, and mom let us wear them for the first time Saturday night. They were so comfy. And mom told us about her most comfy nights too:On laundry days in the summer, mom would hang the sheets to dry outside. Butterflies would visit the floral patterns, and the blue hues of my brother’s sheets seemed to draw the sky down to touch the yard at our feet. Three rows of blowing cotton created a maze, billowing with cool from the moisture and wind.I think mom had a recipe somewhere that told her just how long to let those sheets soak in the summer air. It seemed that I could play and stay near those sheets hanging on the line all day. I couldn’t reach the wooden pins that held the bed clothes firm, but mom would hand them down, and I could just manage getting them to the opening of the mustard yellow hanging bag. I would return the pins to their home, waiting for the next weekend and my next opportunity to help.Some time later while it was not yet night, bedtime would approach. How wonderful to turn out the light and not have to leap through the darkness, toes touching the floor for the briefest of moments as the hairy arms and hands from under the bed barely missed grasping their targets. Instead, on laundry nights in the summer fresh pajamas met fresh sheets while light still cast shadows around the room. Somehow the spider shadow from the wrought iron bed frame didn’t seem so unfriendly. She was more of a Charlotte keeping watch to gather only the most precious of dreams.Dad would come in as I was melting in, surrounded by the scent of outside that had been magically captured within those sheets. We would say prayers together. A fluid breeze was pulled in the window by the attic fan whirring just outside my room. And sleep came sweetly on laundry nights in the summer.