The Lost Island of Childhood

Clean sheets hung out on the clothesline—like sails filling with wind, carrying me in zig-zag line across the wide waters of memory back to the island of my childhood, where everything was safe and ruled with love and in the summer dazzling with sun and ever-stretching time.

I’ve fallen in love with other islands over the years, reached on the blithe white wings of sails or by more mundane transport, once that first and best island proved impossible to get back to— vanished as surely as Atlantis (more absolutely, in fact, since I’ve stood looking at the uncovered ruins of what I’m convinced was Atlantis, on the sheer cliffs of Santorini).

A journey back in time, carried swiftly away from my charted morning commute by those gauzy white sheets.

image: White muslin sheets hanging on a washing line, blowing in the wind, in a backyard in Cheltenham, Victoria, Australia. Hanging baskets are also attached to the line.  DahliyaniBriedis