It's In His Kiss

I love this beautiful photograph of a father and son.  The dad's arms are strong and handsome as they tenderly encircle his small child.  The picture is dated July 4, 1957, so I know it is Independence Day and I am willing to bet that's a hotdog in the boy's hands.  This loving kiss wasn't done just for the camera.  How do I know?  Because of the way it's being received. The child's nonchalant, easy-going receptiveness says, "Yeah, Dad's kissing me.  He does that alot".

I also know that this is true because I happen to know this little boy as a grown man.  And by all accounts, his father was a loving and kind figure in his life.  They spent many happy hours in salvage yards, piecing together old cars.  His father was a great provider, going to college on the GI Bill and eventually working for the Federal Government in charge of nursing home standards.  He was an active church member and took care of extended family members.  Most importantly, he modeled excellent husband behavior and treated his wife with respect and admiration.  He once told his son that everything he and his brother were, was owed to their mother's influence.  My friend's father was modest too.

But sometimes the end-of-life is very difficult and painful, and so it was for this man.  I asked my friend how he was able to reconcile the last wretched years of his father's life with his wonderful childhood memories of him.  He swiftly shot back, "His life was worth more than that"!  I believe he learned that from his father too - that a life is worth so much more than its ending - it is worth the whole damn beautiful sum total.  And how do I know this about a man I only "met" through anecdotes and stories?  You can see it in the picture.  It's in his kiss.  That's where it is...

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!

Wish You Were Here

I like to take a little something home with me each time I go to the beach.  Sometimes I find a pretty piece of sea glass or a perfect creamy white shell.  These little tokens stay on my desk for a time or the windowsill in the kitchen.  But eventually, they seem out of place, especially when the light changes in September.

Wearing summer perfumes is another way of pocketing souvenirs. When I summered on Cape Cod as a teen, Houbigant's Chantilly was never beyond my reach in the envelope compartment of my small floral suitcase.  Later, I swapped fragrances with my best friend and wore her Emeraude for my strawberry oil roll-on.  Our scents made their way into our long windswept hair and the collars of the open jackets we wore at night.  Most perfume back then could be bought very inexpensively at local drugstores and we tried everything from Chanel 5 to Jean Nate.  Later, I discovered Love's Baby Soft which was catnip for not only my boyfriend at the time, but also for me.  It was like a heady drug and I could have rolled around in it - I craved its innocent scent so much.  It was the soft powdery element that I wanted - so childlike and tender.

As a young mother, I was given Elizabeth Arden's Eau Fraiche, a light cult classic that's meant to be sprayed all over the body.  As it dries down, it smells like fresh-cut lilies that are just about to burst forth in a sparkling crystal vase. It's delicious but alas...the fragrance is ephemeral and vanishes quickly, much like the season.

My point is that special perfumes worn only in summer, are like bright picture postcards sent home to be cherished and read and then re-read. They are unexpected keepsakes of our warm-weather days. And when we suddenly happen upon them later in winter - clinging lightly to a scarf or sweater, or dabbed behind our ears after finding a bottle tucked away in a drawer - we are transported back to our golden fleeting summers.  As for the messages in those bottles?  It is but the same - wish you were here.

I Can Row a Boat...

This sweet black and white is most likely Central Park.  It reminds me so much of the Boston Public Garden and the lagoon where my grandmother often took me for summer swan boat rides when I was a girl.  I was always put in a pretty pastel dress with white gloves for our city jaunts and I'm not sure if it was always so, but I recall the soft frothy pinks of magnolia blooms encircling the trees like spun candy.  The Public Garden has a Victorian touch and the gardens are beautifully done within the bounds of good taste.  Ditto the monuments and fountains and the rod iron benches that line the meandering pathways - tailor-made for hand-holding and strolling.  It is very genteel with its pastoral remnants and botanically-crafted gardens and is a deeply romantic place.

As my daughter's wedding day approaches, I find myself nostalgic and easy to persuade with pictures, music, and scents.  Flash backs and memories infuse my days and I am taking many voyages to yesterday.  But now, in addition to the nuptials, I may be moving from the home I've known for 18 years to a beautiful cozy new place.  The challenge is not to be blown away by every wind in the process.  It may have been folly to begin this right at this time, but it's as though I am being led by something unseen yet strongly felt.  Whether it comes to pass, is still unknown but I am pleased to discover that even though I am a weakling in many ways, I can venture into uncharted waters alone and hold my own. I've learned things that I've never known -  how to ask for what I need, negotiate when necessary, and stand down change and fear even when the other shore is not yet on the horizon.  I find I can indeed row a boat....(can you?).

A Morning Letter...

...or email can set the tone for the day.  Here, Mother has run out to the mail box in her sweet little nightgown (needlepoint Alencon lace forming enchanting triangles in primrose pink) and found a letter which she has already opened.  When I wake, I usually check my email to see if anyone has sent me something nice and newsy or sent me best wishes.  Every few days or so, I also check this blog to see if anyone has left a comment or two.  I received a few on my last post for which I thank you.  If you ever feel we have had a shared experience and you want to chat, feel free to email me too.  I promise to respond because I don't believe in unanswered letters.

My first love wrote me only one letter which I received on Christmas Eve day.  My mother, knowing how happy I would be to hear from my silent summer love, hand-delivered it to my bed and says she only recalls the manicured hand that shot out from the depths of the bedclothes to snatch the envelope from her.  The letter simply read, "I hope you have a Merry Christmas" but the words held the promise of summer when we would see each other on Cape Cod again.  But alas, when school ended I was in love...with someone else.  I don't think I was able to forgive his silence.

My next beau wrote prolific, endearing, and funny letters from his lonely college dormitory.  They came two and three pages long - both sides, in thick envelopes.  He embellished his writing with sketches and cartoons of professors and roommates.  They were charming missives but instead, I wanted to find affection between the images and words and in the end, he was only a joker and we were not sympathetic partners.  I saved his letters until the week before I wed and tossed them out intact with the ribbons still around them.  I didn't want to temp myself into re-reading them - it seemed like a betrayal just to hold them.

I am easily swayed by the written word and have been known to fall head over heels for a man who can write.  Somehow, I see beyond the words and phrases to the writer's soul.  And no one is safe - be it brother, boss, or  new son-in-law.  If the man writing has excellent command of the English language, I am regularly beguiled by simple turns of phrases.  Such was the case with a recent correspondent who instead of writing, "I'm going to bed", wrote, "I'm hitting the rack".  Suddenly, I saw him as the handsome young Marine he once was, bunking down on a primitive cot after a hard day of soldiering.  He had me at, dare I say, "rack"?

Letters are hard to come by these days.  I cherish the ones I am lucky enough to receive and keep them cloistered in a box under my bed.  More often than not, I am the happy recipient of regular morning emails.  However, if one of those were in the mail box outside tomorrow morning, I would gladly run to fetch it in my nightie.

This I Shall Tell You

Recently I changed my name back to my maiden one.  When I went to the social security office, the clerk glanced down at my divorce decree, quickly looked up at me and asked, "What took you so long???" I had kept my husband's name to make things easier for my daughter.

It's been 28 years since my former husband placed a one hundred dollar bill in the empty space on the bookshelf that was left by the stereo he yanked from the wall.  For the record, he also took our sterling silver flatware his parents gave us seven years before on our wedding day. The money he left was meant for a month of diapers, food and gasoline but even in 1987, it didn't go far.  Something else was missing that afternoon too - beach towels from the hall closet which eventually led me to the discovery of the new young lady in my husband's life.  Suddenly the world tipped on its axis and I was a grieving single mother of an infant.  In order to divorce me quickly, my husband filed "Cruel and Abusive Treatment".  I remember the judge's scoffing question to my husband, "Did she hit you with a rolling pin or something"?  But the judge divorced us anyway and I rushed home to nurse our baby.

I could tell you all the indignities I suffered, the hardships, the friends that fell away because they were suddenly uncomfortable with my singleness.  I could tell you about the smoke detectors he knew were not hooked up the day he left, the time his mother said I needed to do some yard work so the house would sell faster (his family owns an industrial landscaping company which had stopped coming weekly).  I could tell you about the day the young lady sped up the driveway in a new car to hand deliver another overdue child support check, the day my mother-in-law stopped by to collect her son's tuxedo for a big party, and the time the electricity was turned off (again) because he didn't pay the bill on time.  But no...no, I won't tell you all that.

Instead I will tell you how I learned to be both mother and father to my daughter.  And I will tell you about the time I stayed up all night teaching myself to quilt so that I could finish a pretty flower-sprigged jacket for her.  And how the next day when I photographed her wearing the jacket at the playground, there was no one to delight in it with me or delight with me in her but how we enjoyed the bright October sun anyway and began the rhythm for our future days.  And I will tell you the story about the day we moved from our big house to a three room apartment and my daughter whispered that first night, "Mommy this feels like home too".  And there is the story about the revolving door of babysitters and how hard pressed I was to find her most favorite who eventually came with matching bunny slippers and chocolate chips to bake cookies during The Great Chicken Pox Week when I couldn't take off from work.  I will tell you about my mother's unending rescues and how she lifted me up with encouragement and checks when I was lonely and broke.  I will tell you about the surprising tears I shed at my daughter's first ballet recital when she twirled to "Somewhere Up There" in a white tutu, silver shoes and a shy angelic smile.  That was the day my sister leaned over and squeezed my hand - tears in her eyes too, for a precious little girl who never knew a daddy.  And there is the story of friends who ran out to the drugstore for me so I didn't have to take my child out of her sick bed in the middle of the night to get her medication, and friends who thought to ask us to dinner on especially painful long holiday weekends in summer.  A church that welcomed us and had fathers who told my daughter she was pretty and good.  Oh I will tell you so much more - the years at a new middle school when the mean girls finally got to her and how months later at graduation, she was called three times to the stage for three separate awards, including "Nicest Classmate".  And her other graduations, including the night she received her graduate degree and how I embraced her and whispered, "Now go find your geek!"  And I will tell you how she did just that and fell in love with a smart and fine young man with kind eyes who loves her back.  And I will tell you that in a few weeks she will marry in front of family and friends, colleagues and bosses who tell me over and over what a wonderful woman she is and a gifted Special Ed teacher that is making a difference in our
world. 

Yes...yes, this I shall tell you.


Note:  the picture is from a card I bought and framed in 1987 for my bedroom wall.

Spring Miscellany

 

Last month I saw the film The Woman in Gold with my daughter.  I was not expecting to be so swept away by the plight of Maria Altmann as she attempts to recover a Gustav Klimt painting of her aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer.  The beautiful portrait was stolen from Altmann's family by the Nazi's just prior to WWII in Austria and never returned.  A small piece of written legalese kept the portrait in Vienna after the war.

The movie is really about love of family and what it means to belong and the talismans that tie us to those we've lost, (although having a famous painting is quite a special talisman).  Soon after I saw the film, I read the book, The Lady in Gold: The Extraordinary Tale of Gustav Klimt's Masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, and became even more immersed in Altmann's story.  I decided that I wanted to travel to the Neue Gallery in New York City to see the Klimt myself.

The Neue Gallery is a hushed and intimate museum and while Adele Bloch-Bauer's portrait commanded the room it hung in, the collections are small and personal.  In the museum shop, I purchased a keepsake box of the portrait which contained two beautiful lipsticks reminiscent of Bloch-Bauer's gold dress and the fairy rose tint of her lips.  I thought it was a fitting souvenir for a style writer but I also wanted something to remind me of the beautiful story of triumph and the long-reaching ties of familial bonds.  I highly recommend the film.

Right now, any spare time I have is spent voraciously reading about Edwardian British socialite Heather Firbank.  The new book about her lovely wardrobe, London Society Fashion...The Wardrobe of Heather Firbank, is a gorgeous tome of all the Downton-esque clothes your heart can stand.  Firbank stayed ahead of each trend and bought clothes lavishly from the best couturiers of her time.  Every item in the book represents a happy memory of her life - from flirtatious dances to the thrilling weddings of all her friends.  She lovingly saved every opulent dress and accessory by tucking them away in trunks.  Until her death, the wardrobe stood for all her dreams, most of which were tragically unrealized.  But fortunately for us, she could not relinquish her things and they were eventually donated to the Victoria and Albert Museum.  The book catalogues them in all their glory.

Recently, I read an article about aging written by Dominicque Browning.  Browning was the long-time editor in chief of House and Garden who was fired suddenly a few years ago.  In the article she talks about the difficulty of finding a job after being terminated and all the attending insecurities that one would naturally feel.  An older and wiser editor advised Browning to "Go where the love is", after she suffered further rejections in her employment search.  The phrase reminded me that sometimes we have to step back and really think about the places we spend our time and effort.  Do we feel welcomed in those places?  Are they places that appreciate our passions?  Sometimes we are lucky enough to work somewhere like that or perhaps we attend an exercise class that always makes us feel more of who we are, or we attend churches where we are accepted and wanted.  "Go where the love is" really came home for me after I read the Browning piece.  I suddenly decided I will no longer frequent our local library no matter how many fine books are there.  Over the years, I have found the staff to be cold and impersonal - they look right through me.  The special events I have attended often make me feel less than.  There are people who have entrenched relationships with the library and don't seem to want to make room for others. 

As well, I was asked to attend a PR event for a business I occasionally highlight in my columns.  I brought along a pal for fun but soon discovered I had only been invited to help see that the room was filled to impress other media.  The PR director, who often emails me to ask if I will include one of her clients in my work, was dismissive and snobby and after a few minutes, I felt painfully awkward.  My friend, an accomplished teacher, said she was uncomfortable too, because the other women wouldn't make eye contact or greet her.  It wasn't where the love is and I will carefully choose where I show up and spend my precious time in the future. These days I am finding love at a friendly yoga class on Saturday mornings.  I even found it in my gynecologists' office by the always-happy-to-see-me staff.  Ditto new work events I've been attending.  Go where the love is...

And finally, I am having a renewed affair with the lowly bar of soap.  There is something so soothing about slipping into a tepid bath after a hot day with a fragrant fresh bar of soap.  My favorites are made in Italy but I recently found a perfect French apricot bar at TJ Maxx - it will be lovely for cooling soaks on summer's most sultry nights.  Many soaps claim to be "triple-milled", which research tells me simply means they rinse off easily.  Still, I'm amazed at how the delicate scent of soap lingers on the skin.  There is also something really nice about taking baths in clear unadulterated water again...for now, I'm eschewing filmy body washes and overly-fruity bubble baths for a delicious change of pace.  Amazon sells lots of Italian soaps in the prettiest floral boxes.  Soap is truly an unexpected as well as inexpensive simple pleasure.