nichepoetryandprose

Do people iron anymore?  In these days of permanent press and busy scheduling, who even has an iron?

Until my husband retired last year, I ironed a shirt for him every work day for 30 years.  They were permanent press shirts, too, but no one could ever remember to retrieve the shirt from the dryer when it could be hung up without wrinkles.  And so, I ironed.

Most people grimace when I tell them this, but I found it an enjoyable task.  It was soothing work, with the warmth of the iron, the cool of the fabric, the rhythmic slide of the iron back and forth, and the ironing of each part of the shirt, always in the same order. 

Ironing wasn’t always so easy.  On our hearth are two flat irons and a stand, the ones my Mom’s family used for ironing when she was a little girl and they had no electrcity.  Each flat iron could be fitted with a handle, and irons were exchanged as the first iron cooled and had to be replaced with the hot iron on the wood stove.  Inattention would be rewarded by a neat triangle of burn on the ironed linens.

My great-aunt would have used an electric iron.  In her diary, during 1957, an entry like ‘did a big wash and hung it out’ occurs approximately every second week (she and her husband lived alone, so this was probably an effective and efficient approach).   In every case, the diary entry the following day says ‘did a big ironing’.  In 1957, she did her ‘big ironing’ 25 times, a major task in her round of housework.

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ironing day

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a wedding band wears thin

endless washing of dishes

scrubbing of floors

holding wrists, stroking arms

and heads

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worn as wooden handles

on the flat irons by the stove

hand clasps and presses

back and forth, the lift to test the heat

to fit a hotter iron from the fire

to seal the press, prevent the burn

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a molecule of gold, residue

on every task

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©  Jane Tims  2012