A soft, warm wind pulses through the laundry on our clothesline. Beach towels flap slow in the breeze. Summer fading.

Three little boys with suds in their hair squeal down a long, yellow slide. Sun beats down. The thumping tail of August. Grandma worried about her lawn when my cousins and I would slip-n-slide. I try not to. Let the boys play themselves out. The slip-n-slide I’ll drag off the grass when the sun takes its turn and slides behind the house.

I cut up peaches warm from the tree. Smile as I taste the fruit’s golden flesh. Grandpa would be proud. He loved that I loved his Carolina cling peaches. The kind he raised for the cannery.

My maternal grandparents farmed peaches. Our whole family would gather in their orchard come August to help bring in the harvest. Grandpa’s birthday fell in August. He’d take everyone to dinner, the bill on him. Tired and hungry from a hard day’s work, the meal always tasted extra good. Grandma had her one margarita. “Pops” as we called Grandpa, had his highball. Us kids drank Shirley Temples. After the margarita, Grandma would sometimes giggle. She wasn’t a giggler so I loved the softness on her face during dinner.

It’s adding a clothesline to my life that has brought back memories of my grandparents. They’ve been gone nearly two decades. Today, thirty-five years ago seems like yesterday in my mind. Perhaps it’s the way this August has played itself out, hard and slow in the heat and sweat of broken appliances. Moisture runs down my back where the baby is strapped in his backpack. He weighs nearly twenty pounds now. I feel small and achy beneath the weight of this seventh child.

Thirty years ago, I swore I’d never be like my grandmother with her clothesline. The endless manual labor: chickens to feed, vegetables to pick, a man to fix three meals a day for out of flour and freshly killed animals. And all her other chores to boot. Yet, here I am standing at a clothesline after feeding the chickens.

Lately, God has been stripping modern conveniences away. Our clothes dryer is dead. The coffee maker, too. Our home’s air conditioner no longer works. My car is in the shop. I see how spoiled I’ve been. I meditate on this as I hang out the clothes with baby on my back. Remember how Grandma never complained…

The boys complain it’s hot. So I buy the half price slip-n-slide. Summer on clearance.

Baby soap exaggerates the slip. No need for a bath tonight. The boys run across the grass, dive onto the slide, scream in delight. Delight fills me, too. For a moment I am eight years old again in my bathing suit on my grandparents’ lawn with my cousins…

And suddenly I am grateful for what God has stripped away. Without a dryer, our clothes smell like country air. Because of hard work, my arms are strong. Gym-toned without a gym in sight. Instead, I see the chicken house, the garden, the clothesline. Peaches on our trees. And beyond that, my grandparents…

Their life was good. Wholesome. Grandma never missed church. Never forgot who God was. Lawerance Welk was her favorite show. The music of her life inspires me now. Songs of gratefulness for a clothesline, slip-n-slide, and Carolina peaches.

Move slow sweet August… slow dance with me, chores and memories. Life is not about getting things done. It’s about who and how we love. The joy this evening of bathing the boys on a slip-n-slide, making a Carolina cling peach cobbler, and watching our laundry pound in the breeze: the heartbeat of God in my life.