The biggest lesson I�ve learned...

The biggest lesson I�ve learned this year is that no one is really your friend, or truly loves you until they�ve seen every dark shadow inside you, and stayed.

That�s when I realized what a true friend was.

That�s when I realized what a true friend was. Someone who would always love you - the imperfect you, the confused you, the wrong you - because that is what people are supposed to do.

Keep smiling because life�s a beautiful thing...

This life is what you make it. No matter what, you�re going to mess up sometimes, it�s a universal truth. But the good part is you get to decide how you�re going to mess it up. But just remember, some people come, some people go. The ones that stay with you through everything, they�re your true best friends. Don�t let go of them. People are going to break your heart but you can�t give up

Vanity Fair

In Chapter Nine of Little Women, the March sisters prepare Meg for a journey to Boston for the long-awaited Sally Moffat coming-out party.  Meg Goes to Vanity Fair is one of my favorite chapters in the Louisa May Alcott book.  As Meg packs her trunk with her finest clothes and accessories, her sisters gather 'round and contribute their own best things as well.  I love the helpful and fluttery way the girls anticipate Meg's opportunity to finally rub elbows with a proper society and their excited chatter about all the wonderful things they imagine will happen to Meg at the wealthy Moffat's.

I am about to venture to my own Vanity Fair and although I have no sisters nearby to help pack my trunk, I do feel the love and support of those who care.  My destination is not Boston Society but an exciting new job with more money, exceptionally wonderful benefits and hopefully, more respect than in my last position.  To prepare for Vanity Fair, I have scripted a checklist for my "trunk" based on all the loving advice I have received about this sudden and perfectly Providential chance.  The new position practically fell from the sky and into my outstretched arms (although I was ready the day my heart whispered to my soul, "Where's your pride?").

~As I enter the door of my new firm, I will tell myself "I am about to meet some life-long friends".  (From my sister)

~I will pack a book as well as a healthy salad for lunch in case my initial lunchtime appears to be a lone one (i.e., lonely).  (From my daughter)

~I will remind myself that this job was a gift from Heaven above and I will be mindful of the Divine's hand.  (From my good friend, Karen, who prayed)

~My look will straddle the more casual dress code of my new company with my natural tendency toward trust-fund-librarian style.  I will strike an appropriate balance until I know more about how the natives dress.  (Also from Karen)

~I will remember that new ventures even at my age, mean a "younger" brain and learning new things will be ever-so-good for me.  (Also from my sister)

~I will carry a small tote bag with a few "comforts" for just-in-case, including an extra set of contact lenses, some tea bags, tissues, and a new notebook for jotting down notes in a pretty way. (My friend Patty, an inveterate self-starter who is a wee bit older than I)

~I will become acquainted with my new commute route well before my start date so I arrive with time enough to compose myself and check my lipstick.  (The Complete Secretary's Handbook - 1962 edition)

Unlike Meg March, no one can pack my trunk for me...but my loved ones have certainly helped me fill it.

On the Twelfth Day of a Feminine Christmas

This young woman reminds me of a Grace Livingston Hill heroine.  Maybe it's because of the lovely church in the background.  Grace's protagonists were all believers.  If the old Victoria magazine had lasted long enough, I'm sure it would have found Livingston-Hill a worthy subject for its marvelously feminine periodical.  I can only imagine the clothes they would have put the models in:  fur-trimmed wool suits, floral dresses with rustling skirts...I could go on.

Every year I take a peek at Victoria's book, "A Woman's Christmas".  I've used it as a mini-journal, recording various details about my Christmas'.  Yesterday I found a sentimental entry I wrote a few years ago and I'm going to share it here.

~

"I get misty and giddy when I think of all the happy holidays I had at Nana's, the wonderful little things my mother did for us, the neighbors we always visited on Christmas Eve, the majesty of our Catholic church, the carols I sang my heart out with the Girl Scouts.  All these things were part of my childhood and they live on inside of me...

Then there were the years with HIM.  I decorated our houses with abandon and had the money to do it.  Those trees and homes live on inside too.  As well as the small teddy bear he gave me one Christmas morning with the pearl earrings I still wear today pierced into its furry little ears.  And the challenging but glorious years I was a young single mother of the most darling little girl.  She sang in the choir at church, made cookies with me in her bunny slippers and I especially cherish the Christmas morning she pulled her first real doll out of the box and exclaimed with awe, 'She looks just like me, Mommy!'  I hold dear the day I took my good friend Karen to Orchard House the week before Christmas and watched her face from the sidelines as she first laid eyes on Louisa May Alcott's wreathed front door.  All these Christmas memories may live on Yesterday's shelf but they are a part of me for always.

And my reminiscences of yore, in no way means that I am closed off to the bright new gifts of the future.  I have more Christmas' in store for me.  And as I await them, I know the real spirit dwells within...alongside the memories."  ~ December, 2010

~

Merry Christmas!

Better Than Their Betters

The title of my post comes from one of my favorite films, Mrs. Miniver.  I never paid much attention to the line until it came to mind this weekend.  Mrs. Miniver, played by Greer Garson, nearly misses her train home from London because she runs back to the milliner's to buy a costly and frivolous hat she fell in love with earlier in the day.  In the train car with her is Lady Beldon (Dame May Whitty), the town's wealthiest resident with the longest most ancestral history to her name.

Now, Mrs. Miniver is quite lovely but to Lady Beldon she is merely middle class and so, Lady Beldon has a mini-rant on women "running to and fro", buying up expensive and impractical "bits and bobs", and acting "better than their betters".  By "betters", Lady Beldon's meaning is crystal clear:  she means herself.

It's laughable really, because most of us have never lived under a true caste system which was apparently still evident in rural England before the war.  But wars are equal opportunity tragedies, as Lady Beldon soon discovers.

One of my favorite days of the year occurs on this weekend - I travel by train to Boston for an antiquarian book and paper show.  My friend and I have dinner afterwards at our favorite hotel restaurant and then take a long walk in the fall sunshine down tree-lined boulevards dotted with sparkling shops.  I usually try to pick up a few Christmas gifts, especially if I find something unusual.  But I also like to visit a particular lingerie shop to see what's new and finger a few pretty things.

I don't have to buy to be inspired.  I so enjoy looking at the way things are put together - the new colors and styles.  I always walk away from this day wondering if I should take more risks with my wardrobe and pondering more creative possibilities is always fun.  What was not fun was when I entered the lingerie shop that I was so excited to visit, I was first ignored and then insulted.  Perhaps if I were wearing a shiny black down jacket cinched at the waist with $500 sleek black riding boots along with designer hair and handbag, I would have been treated better.  It doesn't matter what was said or done but I did feel diminished in my new forest green sweater coat and attractive black suede loafers.  And that's just silly...

A friend told me today that she simply doesn't frequent stores where she is made to feel less than.  I may adopt her approach.  But for now, I took the time to write an email to the shop's manager who was not there when I was.  And I've already received a kind and apologetic response with a warm welcome to return and meet with her personally.

Now that's better...

The Richness of Apples

"I miss the apples", a grade-school friend said to me recently.  He lives in Florida now and was referring to the apples that practically paved the roads and sidewalks, the fields and hills in my hometown each fall. Having been a pastoral place of farms and orchards, only the trees remained but they filled the autumn air with the honeyed scent of apples.  One needed only to bend over and grope beneath the dusty leaves to pluck a fallen specimen to munch on during the walk home from school.  Tart though the fruit was, the atmosphere was sweet with the apples, burning leaves, and wood smoke.

This ad is for Yardley's Pot-o-Gloss lipgloss.  The model, Evelyn Kuhn's cheeks are fever-bright and I bet she's wearing the McIntosh Red gloss or perhaps Winesap.  Her features are strong enough to carry off the orange sweater along with the Buffalo plaid jacket in red and although the stylist may have created a mild cliche with the look, I love it and as a teenager I embraced it entirely.

Our little drugstore carried Pot-o-Gloss and buying a new color was the first rite of passage in fall.  Even if it was still too warm to wear woolens, a new apple-inspired lip color would promise things to come - late afternoon soccer games and Friday night lights, crisp Saturdays at the movies with friends, and sunshiny times outside and when we would not even think about diving into that chemistry homework or covering our text books with brown paper bags.

So now that we are all grown-up, how can we bring apple-richness to lives drawn by responsibilities?  What do we do when our heartstrings draw us back to blue skies, home fires, and long-ago friends?  We can start with an apple-red lip gloss...

My apple-polisher suggestion:

Mac's Fresh Moroccan, a deep apple red softened with gold glints- perfect for crisp days as well as warm Indian Summer ones.  Your fall orchard, re-imagined.

The Custom of Compacts

I watched a poignant documentary a few weeks ago on public television called Tea Time.  It followed five Chilean women who have been gathering together once a year for tea since graduating from high school over 60 years ago! They take turns hosting the teas which include a delectable number of pastries and sandwiches.  In between takes, the camera captures flowery tea leaves gently unfurling in hot water as we hear the ever-present sound of a ticking clock.  When we first meet the women, they are already quite elderly but very lively with great affection for one another.  At the end of each tea, all the women perform a charming ritual as familiar as the ticking clock:  they take from their handbags small round compacts of powder and tubes of lipstick and freshen up.  It is here that the camera hones in on each lined face for this final act of feminine primping before the women face the world at large again for another year.

Many of my favorite vintage films include scenes where the heroine carefully powders her nose in public.  Even Meg Ryan's character Kathleen Kelly in You've Got Mail, pulls out her compact to pat at her face only to violently snap it shut when she catches sight of her b�te noir Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) in its mirror.  

Just before bed the other night, I was paging through an old 1972 Seventeen magazine when I saw an ad for a familiar petite tortoiseshell compact.  It was divided into two sections, containing a cream blush and a lip gloss in best-friend hues of soft pink and vibrant rose.  I realized I had once owned the same pretty compact in high school.

I remember how clever I thought the idea of having two products in one place was and this beauty aid was especially nice and small enough to carry in the palm of my hand or tuck in the pocket of my jeans.  I never had a need for pressed powder or nose-powdering but I loved the idea of an old-fashioned compact which appealed to my girly sensibility, especially with its mirror, satin smooth shell, and satisfying click upon closing.

A quick internet search did not reveal anything quite like my high school compact but I discovered lots of cream blushers in small artful compacts and I bought a beautiful polished black one with a gorgeous flush-pink rouge inside.  It is just the right size to be reminiscent of my old blush-and-lipstick combo.  I had forgotten how lovely it is to take out a nice compact to freshen up my face and check for spinach.

Soon I will gather with my own high school girlfriends at our annual summer picnic.  After lunch, I'll remember to use my glossy new compact which is deft and discreet enough not cause much attention.  But if someone should notice, they will be told that I am performing a feminine ceremonial that crisscrosses time and place.

~

http://www.golocalprov.com/beauty/ri-beauty-expert-the-art-of-blushing-creamy-color-for-summers-end