White Linen

There has always been something particularly festive and beautiful about white linen.  Not only is it very clean and bright, it signals a special occasion and joy, also seriousness, decorum and good manners.

For Canadian Thanksgiving, yesterday, I had decided to reconfigure my little living/dining room to be able to seat 12 people and also be able to remove the tables again.  I ended up with using five bistro tables from IKEA--two I owned already, and purchased three more.  To cover them, I cut in half several white table cloths in my stash.

(I used to own  some monographed heirloom linen, passed down through the generations from unknown individuals.  They were incredibly tough and irregular, the real item, something everybody should have a chance to handle once with their own hands.)

So, in the end, I had five tables covered in white.  Afterwards I realized that my meal might stain the cloths fairly permanently, with the type of sauces I had chosen to make. I almost opted to run to Home Hardware to get some custom size vinyl covers.  But no, vinyl covers ruin the whole effect.  NO, no, no, no, no.  We will see how it goes.

OF COURSE, we ended up with some spicy red stains on the table cloths.  Thanks to our trusty new programmable washing machines these days, I could choose a nice long, very hot wash with extra long spin cycle, etc.  All, said, by washing the cloths hard and adding some bleach, they came out beautifully white and shiny, again. --Whew.

My husband asked me about the cloths, afterward, as I folded them after drying.  "How did the stains come out?"  I said to him: "This is the beauty of white.  You can wash it like crazy, add the bleach, and voila, it is white again."

You can always clean and bleach white again.

And again.

All of which reminded me of the multitude of Saints who are before the throne dressed in white.  It is a white that has been given them, by the lamb, through trials and tribulations.  There is nothing easy about this white.  And it needs tough rewashing all the time. It needs very hot water, and lots of tumbling, to get the stains out.  It is a beautiful and costly white, but one that can always be recovered again.  Such, also is our life.