Two Mothers

I'm always a little sad when Mother's Day ends.  I have enough self-knowledge to know it's the passage of time that gently tugs at my heart.  Quickly go the years...

These two ladies were neighbors for almost thirty years.  The photo was taken last summer at my daughter's wedding.  The woman on the right is my mother, Joan.  Next to her is my second mother, Rosemary, who receives a Mother's Day card from me each year.

Rosemary is my first best friend's mother.  As girls, Paula and I used to love when our mothers gathered to chat in the heated summer darkness at the end of our driveway.  We pretended to play but we were really hanging onto their every word.  It was during one of these eavesdropping sessions that I discovered my mother was harboring a secret worry that my eyebrows might be taking on the shape of my Scottish grandfather's (believe me, you don't want the flying brows of a scotsman).  I also got advance notices of upcoming vacations and other plans that were still in closed family discussions.  One night the mothers collectively concluded that it was ok for us to begin shaving our legs, long-wished for by us and long-denied by them.  Lots of rites-of-passages occurred in tandem because they were dissected and decided during motherly pow-wows that took place in the still summer air, accompanied only by the waving buzz of cicadas.

We knew it was time for bed when our mothers began slapping at their legs.  The mosquitoes always won out and off to bed we'ld go, a little disappointed there wasn't going to be more said...and more to hear.

Seventeen Summer

No matter what age I was, all my summers were Seventeen Summers.  They were filled with the glories depicted in what I consider Seventeen Magazine's golden years (1960's - 1970's).  Neither cell phones nor iTunes were part of my Seventeen Summers.  We had small transistor radios to listen to the Top 40 but with the sound kept to a respectable neighborly level.  There was no such thing as a designer handbag with a dangling fur-ball charm or must-have designer sneakers.  If we wore sneakers, they were a simple pair of Ked's fetched out of a bin at a sneaker barn near Boston for less than five dollars.  Handbags were small and ladylike and gifted to us by grandmothers to be used and loved for years.

The playing field was level because no one in my hometown could afford designer clothing and that's if we even knew what designer clothing was.  If we didn't sew our own summer clothes and many of us did, we bought them in the same small clothing shops on Main Street or at Filene's, Jordan Marsh or Sears, just like everybody else.  Those stores are where we would find all the pretty clothes we saw in Seventeen.  The simply daisy-printed shift, the cute little short set, or the nautical skirt - all accessible straight from the page.  There were no $7000 dresses in Seventeen Magazine.

And yet, somehow we all looked adorable.  Maybe it was the inexpensive cosmetics, like Yardley's Pot-o-Gloss or the grass-green bottles of Herbal Essence shampoo, all as close as a stroll to the local Rexall.  We didn't need to wander around a big box store to get our beauty stuff.  If Rexall didn't have, we didn't need it.  Maybe it was because we followed Seventeen's monthly beauty column that told us we could make ourselves lovely in the comfort of our very own teenaged bedrooms that we decorated ourselves.  There were no nail salons for mani/pedi's on each and every corner.  Or waxing and threading spas.  We plucked.  Using slanted steel Tweezerman's - the same kind Grandmother used - while peering into the True-To-Light magnifying mirrors we got for Christmas.  Our Saturdays were not devoted to facials, tanning, and massages. Seventeen days were meant for meaningful pursuits.

Such as reading a big fat book lying on a blanket in the backyard.  Or seeing who could find the best rock for our parents to set the picnic table with to keep the paper plates and napkins from blowing down the street on the 4th of July.  Sometimes we were told to corral the little kids at the barbeque and play games with them so the adults could talk.  It was expected that we were participating members of a different kind of gang - The Family.  Maybe we babysat neighborhood children for 50 cents an hour.  Some of us taught crafts at the Recreation Department's day camp where we would instruct elementary children in lanyard making or gum wrapper chains.  Some of us were lifeguards at the town's wading pools or we manned the concession stand at the beach. Others supervised at Vacation Bible School or volunteered at the hospital as Candy Stripers. Everyone walked everywhere or rode bikes.  Mother's gardening time was never disturbed for just a ride because it was perfectly safe and healthy to walk a couple of miles a day if we had to get somewhere.  No one had a car of their own but almost everyone had a friend to walk and chat with once they met up at the corner.  Arrangements for meet-ups were organized by using the one family telephone that hung on the kitchen wall with an extended chord.  That is, if somebody else wasn't yapping on it first.

If we were older, our Seventeen Summer may have included tennis court dances and dates to the local hot-dog stand at the edge of town.  We went to the drive-in in groups or we cozied up at beach bonfires and concerts.  If we had saved money from our varied jobs, there may have been a late summer bus ride with a chum to the city for back-to-school togs and school supplies. Whatever we bought, I guarantee it was culled from Seventeen.

Despite all this activity, there was still time to noodle through Wuthering Heights or to get an early start on required summer reading lists.  Long hours of lollygagging prepared us for the upcoming rigors of high school and we better be ready for it.  We kept diaries, sent postcards, played cards, ...vegetated...talked.  And we attracted boys with lively conversation and sandwiches like Boy Trap #51.  No twerking involved.

There wasn't much drama in a Seventeen Summer.  Life was simple and we knew our place. Seventeen Magazine just assumed we wanted to volunteer, help out, expand our minds all the while having fun without the narcissism that plagues so many young people today.  We wanted to look good but we didn't obsess about it.  We used our natural beauty and enhanced it with a few well-chosen affordable cosmetics.  And then we forgot about it.  Which made room for rewarding connections, stewardship, laughter...

...and more than a few dreams.

Can I see you?

I love the written word and when a man writes, I listen (or read) -  especially if he is articulate.  I fell in love when a man once wrote to me, "I'm going to hit the rack".  He could have said, "I'm going to bed" but his phrase charmed me and belied his military background which excited me. TO. NO. END.  Thankfully, I found out there was more to him than a good turn of phrase. Otherwise, I would be quite unhappy now.  But sometimes less is more, in words and other things.

Recently, a young friend showed me a text she received from her new love.  "Can I see you"? is all it said. Behind four words, someone's world was holding its breath.  I couldn't think of a more romantic question.  Simple.  Direct.  "Can I see you"?

There is something respectful in the question too - the young man is giving his love interest a chance to say no.  He asked and now he has taken a step back...waiting.  He's not demanding anything of her - only asking a question...but one with a veiled and tender apprehension behind it (Will she let me?). He's not desperate exactly - but he's concerned - she may not say yes.  He knows she's busy. He knows she isn't yet his...

It's all there in four controlled words..."Can I see you"?

(She said yes).

Valentine is please to present

�Untitled�

Drawings and other works on paper

by

David Scher and Benji Whalen
 with 
Ben Godward in the garden

Opening Friday April 15 from 6:00-9:00

This exhibit will run through Sunday May 15

valentineridgewood@gmail.com

Room With A View

I had a co-worker/friend who wanted me to meet her parents and so one lunch hour she took me to their small city apartment.  The first thing I noticed was a rather odd still life on top of the hi-fi in the living room.  There sat pictures of my co-worker and her sister as schoolgirls with hand painted macaroni necklaces slung between the frames.  Also included in this collection were two pairs of bronzed baby shoes, other small childhood artifacts and some long tapered lit candles.  "I told you", my friend whispered as she leaned into my ear.  It was right then and there that I decided I would never have an altar for any grown child of mine.  This vow was made before I was even married.

When my daughter grew up and left home, she left behind a small room with lilac walls and a big empty closet.  I was excited that I would at last have simultaneous summer and winter clothes storage but I also began to craft a view of myself in that room.  I saw myself reading on an as-yet-undiscovered loveseat looking out of the second story window to a sea of green from the woodlands behind the house.  I saw myself sitting in a cozy feminine chair at night in my slippers and shawl sipping a last cup of tea and watching TV.  I saw myself napping, exercising, daydreaming, and chatting companionably to friends on the phone, my leg dangling nonchalantly from said loveseat.  I knew I wanted to claim that room as soon as possible.  And although I have a fair amount of pictures of my daughter, a drawer filled with grammar school art, not to mention Mother's Day presents created by precious little hands, I knew I would have no shrines in this room.

Soon I spackled and painted the walls.  I took a chance and bought an alarmingly large antique armoire to hold the television and DVD player.  I found a faded rose-colored love seat with dainty flowing lines, a little tapestry vanity chair to hold magazines, and a graceful orchid plant.  But the pi�ce de r�sistance which thrilled me the most was a cheap white half-wall bookcase that now holds my entire collection of style books which for years, were inconveniently helter-skelter under my bed.

Last week as I perched on the new loveseat, I surveyed all that is mine and wistfully looked out the window trying to imagine the bare-branched trees in their soon-to-be green dress.  My eyes happily skimmed the titles of the books in my new shelf just before I smugly took stock of my winter sweaters, stacked up in the closet like drums.  The view is of a literary life full of reading and writing, and evening quietude to restore the soul.  But it only took a quick audit to see that as I look to the future, something was missing from the past.  Turns out it was a small round photo of a little girl in a pink tutu.

Sunshine On Her Shoulders...

...makes model/actress Shelley Hack happy in her vibrant floral jacket.  I also love the rays of sun that illuminate her hair and pretty face in this picture, which I recently found in one of my vintage Seventeen magazines.  

Trotting out bright floral-fresh new clothes was always a rite of spring passage.  It began with the Easter outfit which included black patent Marjane's, white lace-trimmed socks, a smocked dress, pastel spring coat, white gloves, and a beribboned straw hat with a too-tight under-the-chin elastic strap. But Easter sometimes came with frigid temperatures and it was back to ski jackets and knit hats the next day. 

April is a changeable month in the Northeast.  A co-worker once vowed that on May 1st, no matter what the forecast, she would begin wearing her spring clothes (turnip!).  I know that longing and since I've never been good at transitional dressing, selecting things to wear in early spring is always a challenge.  I wish dressing now were as easy as pulling on a tropic-colored summer dress over my head.

My daughter and I went shopping yesterday and she couldn't decide if a tangerine sweater was "too bright".  I explained that once the sun shows itself again in earnest, the tangerine will feel just right. She bought the sweater.  I bought nude pumps to lighten up my work pants and sweaters.  

As I yearn for lovely sunshine on my own shoulders, I look back at some of my most memorable and favorite spring clothes:

mint-green "baseball jacket" with rainbow cuffs my grandmother made me

red, white and green striped dirndl skirt my mother bought me when I was in Jr. High School

white piqu� dress trimmed with daisy rick-rack for 6th grade dance

shiny vinyl egg yolk-yellow raincoat with "fireman" hardware closures worn over bell bottoms on rainy school days

double-knit rose-colored date dress with short sleeves, Peter Pan collar, and three matching pearl buttons 

red dotted-swiss dress with white lace trim and back tie worn under graduation gown

(Graduation Day)

luka & oliver: month one

Time has wings! I can't believe our little dudes are a month old. Even weeks after their birth, it still boggles my mind that Scotty & I made these perfect little humans. 

What I've been loving lately:

• their squishy faces & bodies' 
• their tiny squawks, squeaks & snorts 
• their big little sneezes 
• their alert soon-to-be blue eyes following my voice 
• the way they snuggle into my chest
• the way Oliver purses his lips, sticks out his tongue and makes funny faces after a feed 
• how Luka's smile & sweet disposition turn everyone around him into a mushy mess 
• can't. stop. smiling or covering their perfectly wrinkly foreheads in a million kisses
• seeing how much our family and friends love and care for them

Every day I look at their sweet faces and think to myself, "Wow, these are *our* babies! They were so worth the wait and all the pain we endured over the years because I can't imagine my life without them in it." I'm beyond grateful IVF worked for us and helped make a seemingly impossible dream a reality. 

Becoming Oliver & Luka's mom is the best thing that's ever happened to me and seeing Scotty in his new role as a dad makes my heart feel things I never knew possible. I couldn't have asked for a lovelier life. ?? 

p.s. Aren't the boys' quilts beautiful? They were lovingly made by their Aunties Cathy and Caroline. I'm going to attempt a monthly picture of Ollie and Luka on the quilts for the next year. Attempt is the key word here. (;