The Color Inside My World

Yesterday the color was snow.  White and pristine, missing at Christmas but present for my daughter's birthday on Epiphany, another holy day.  We took the train to Boston along with my sister in icy cold air and soft flurries to celebrate my daughter.

And oh the things we did ...a companionable lunch high above the city streets, a little bit of shopping, people-watching and then home to join husbands and family for cake and iced cream.  A full day of bumping shoulders with my daughter and sister and taking inspiration and energy from the city.

This is an annual trek which signals my personal end of the holidays - once January 6th passes, I finally store the ribbons and paper that clutter my wrapping corner.  We do indulge in some of the sales - I found an irresistible ballet-pink wool muffler, two small lacy gold picture frames, and a box of snowy candles that will look lovely in the crystal candlesticks on my mantel which have been vacant since the red ones burned to stubs on Christmas Eve.

My joy was watching my daughter's blond head hovered above the crowd in her attractive chalk-white down coat -  she was the picture of winter.  And as all of her birthdays do, they make me feel a little nostalgic with a stark reminder that time is passing really fast now.  Last year marked the "crossover" birthday which means she has been a presence in my life longer than the years I lived before her.  That says something, doesn't it?

Daughters are a fine thing - sons too, I am assured by my sister.  But may I just say that my daughter's chroma is from vivid kaleidoscope hues that transform in ever-changing sequences?  Her chic look yesterday may have mirrored the day's fairy-scape, but she is the color in my world.

~

I know a girl

She puts the color inside of my world

But, she's just like a maze

Where all of the walls all continually change

And I've done all I can

To stand on her steps with my heart in my hand

Now I'm starting to see

Maybe It's got nothing to do with me

Fathers, be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do

Girls become lovers who turn into mothers

So mothers be good to your daughters too ~ Daughters, John Mayer

Photo Credit: Volk Clarke Galleries

On the Second Day of a Feminine Christmas

I just sent this picture to my daughter and wrote, "I am so sorry"... I was well into single parenting when this photograph was taken and I so wanted her to experience a wonder-filled and "normal" Christmas.  She did.  She just didn't like sitting on a strange man's lap.

We laugh about it now and many other things too, but being a lone parent during the holidays seemed a daunting challenge in those early years.  My first Christmas alone, when my daughter was just an infant, I wandered our big echoing house feeling very sorry for myself.  I worried about my future, my daughter's, where I would find work, daycare...time, energy.  I worried the gifts under the tree weren't enough even though my daughter was too young to care.  I realize now it was all the future Christmases that preoccupied me.  But hope came down the chimney that sad first year and I never forgot it.

While sitting before our little tree after having lit a fire by myself for the first time and while my daughter slumbered upstairs, I heard the garage door open.  The only person who had the other automatic opener was my mother.  I raced across the ice cold floors and yanked open the entry to the garage. Her borrowed car was filled with toys, food, and even a cord of firewood.  When she stepped out into the cold garage she said, "Santa came to my house by mistake".  I couldn't speak.  I bowed my head and wept.

Together we propped an old-fashioned doll in a petite wooden high chair and tucked her under the tree.  Nestled nearby was a new pull-sled for hauling baby and groceries which was a welcome gift in the snowy western-Massachusetts hill town where we lived.  There were also muffins for breakfast, orange juice and the aforementioned wood for burning.  Mom didn't stay long and we didn't talk much as we worked -  she had to come back the next morning for the great Baby's First Christmas unveiling, which would not be an easy maneuver for her.  I do remember she held me in her arms before she slipped back out to the garage.  I recall she looked deep into my eyes with a smile that said, "You can do this".  But it wasn't until I watched her snow-covered car disappear down the long driveway at nearly midnight that I realized her visit wasn't to deliver presents and goodies - she came because she didn't want me to feel alone.  And now, years and years later, I have also realized that on that dark first Christmas Eve alone, she gave me a gift that has stood the test of time...courage for the future.  And for a woman who excels at finding the perfect Christmas gift, it is still the best she ever gave.

Summer Skies and Lullabies

As we await the delivery of wedding photographs, we are reminiscing about our happy day. Sunday morning dawned with smokey fog but by noon, the skies peeled back to reveal a lovely Wedgewood blue -  the color that transforms objects into something heavenly, as if one has put on rose-colored glasses.  More than once, I felt a catch in my throat - and a longing for something ...more time...more lullabies...a little girl and her dolly...and for other lives no longer overlap ours.  I also had the sensation of being carried around on a cushioned bed of serenity and happiness.  It was my daughter's wedding day!

I remember the rows of white chairs as we strolled down the aisle of our cloistered grotto. The hydrangeas bowed their heavy heads and the hibiscus danced a shimmy at the whispering sea breezes. My daughter's ivory dress suddenly seemed so bright and fresh in the sunlight, the meaning of it so clear...her perfection, her youth, her joy...and all her hopes for the future represented in the chiffon flower, the encrusted pearls, the simple net veil.  Her golden locks were smoothed out and shiny, skin perfect.  At the simple altar, rosebud lips - the same ones I fretted over so worriedly in a hospital isolate so many years ago - whispered "I love you forever, Mom".  She released my arm with a squeeze and I took my place.

The ceremony was simple and hushed and over way too fast - a promise, a ring, a kiss...no drama or hype - no fuss -  so very like her.  I watched them pass by to "Here Comes the Sun" but at the end of the aisle, they stopped and waited for me.  Together we three wrapped our arms about each other and smiled into sets of brimming eyes.  And then, my new son murmured something only I heard:  "She's safe... you don't have to worry anymore".  Oh young man, if you but only knew...

The flashbacks have stopped at last.  I am clearing out her room and spreading out my life. When I went to bed that first night there was a card nestled beside my pillow.  On one side was her love letter and on the other, the instructions for changing the time on my clock radio - something I never got the hang of.

More beauty, fashion, books, art, and life posts coming up...back to my usual musings soon!

Paperdoll Worlds

I loved paperdolls as a child.  I thought they were the most precious things.  My mother tore out Betsy McCall's page from her monthly McCall�s magazine for me and I spent many afternoons on the braided rug in the living room, legs folded under, painstakingly clipping Betsy's dainty dresses with the fastening tabs.  Later, I graduated to Barbie paperdolls and then bride paperdolls that were so romantic and pretty, the dresses so exquisite and lacey - all the stuff of  little girls' dreams.  

I kept my dolls in a dented and chipped round metal cookie tin - a big cheery jumble of paper dresses, sweaters and skirts, coats, knee sox and patent leather shoes.  After I dressed my dolls, I made up conversations between them and trotted them off to make-believe parties and weddings where they would live happily ever after...forevermore...amen.  My plans for my dolls were as expansive as my fantasies.  I never had a friend who loved paperdolls with the same fervor until I met Kay, 40 years later.  Not that Kay and I actually played with paperdolls as grown single mothers - but we rejoiced the day we discovered we were both mad for them as girls.

 

Not only did Kay play with paperdolls but she drew her own.  She vividly remembers drawing a bride paper doll and a groom.  She was playing with them on a dock at her aunt and uncle�s cottage on Chesapeake Bay when a wind blew them into the water. Her uncle saved the day by fishing them out with a crab net, so beloved were they to her.

 

I read recently that empty nesters should ask themselves who they were when they were ten years old.  The theory is to recapture childhood passions and use them as a launch pad to discover what one should do when intense parenting is over.  I won't be clipping paperdolls from magazines anytime soon but I have been thinking a lot about what things will sustain me and feed my soul in the future.  Lately, I've been re-reading some classic childhood storybooks such as The Little Princess and Little Women.  I already know that books will always have a place in my life and after revisiting old favorites as an grown-up, I've observed that the very best children's books can be appreciated at any age.  But reading will not be enough.

 

Kay is a gifted image consultant and states that her clients are like grown-up paperdolls to her - she loves dressing and accessorizing them.  Perhaps her gift was born of all those happy hours spent on a braided rug at her house - or on a wooden dock.  As for me, I would love to have a peek inside that old beat-up cookie tin again.  Even better, find some new passions...but only ones that are as engrossing and thrilling as a paperdoll world.  

  

Come back when you grow up, girl

You've still got a lotta time left in the world

You'll some day be a woman ready to love

Come back, baby, when you grow up

 

Come back when you grow up, girl

You're still livin' in a paper-doll world

Livin' ain't easy, lovin's twice as tough

So come back, baby, when you grow up

 

~Bobby Vee