A Lovely Inconsequence

Hat Lady

2012-01-27T17:40:00.000-08:00

I am a hat lady. I wear them. A lot. I love straw hats in the summer but I especially love winter hats. I would not have been caught dead in a hat nearly all my life. Then I went to a funeral and met a woman in a simple lilac jacket, a nice pair of black trousers, stilettos, and a straw hat. She looked like a little china doll and she was of a certain age too. I was enchanted by the hat and asked her about it. "It was my mother's from the 1930's", she said. She looked great. With a fussier outfit, she would have morphed from a chic woman in a hat to a blowsy hippie-type. The key is keeping the clothes simple - the streamlined jacket, the silk camisole underneath, and the shiny black stilettos allowed for the small straw hat with the slightest bit of netting and a silk flower. I was sold on hats at that funeral.

I began buying any hat that reminded me of hers. But when summer was over and winter came, I looked for warm stylish hats. In Newport, I found a terrific hat shop and there, I learned about felted fur hats, which are the ultimate in a structured winter hat. The hats are usually rabbit fur which are felted and blocked on wooden molds. It takes quite a long time to felt and shape a fur hat. The shop had hundreds of them, all in lively colors like teal, magenta, and purple. By the time the shop closed five years after I first found it, I had amassed a cranberry cloche with a thick self tie around the brim, a black bowler with a thin grossgrain ribbon, and a warm chocolate brown with a silk flower.

I try to wear a hat on the bitter cold days we have here in New England. This year I'm wearing a lot of knit hats with matching scarves and I cannot believe the warmth they afford me. Now I feel cold and exposed without one of my hats on. To keep it chic, I remember the simplicity of the woman at the funeral - too many colors, patterns, and fabric and a woman risks being thought of as a pagan or cat person (nothing wrong with either but that's not me).

Meg Ryan says in "You've Got Mail" that she saw a butterfly get off the subway where she imagined it was "going to Bloomingdale's to buy a hat which will be a mistake as all hats are". Well, I don't believe that...not all hats are mistakes and I'm sure that butterfly is wearing a chic fedora right now. Instead, I offer you this sweet and romantic hat quote that suits better:

" A hat is to be stylish in, to glow under, to flirt beneath, to make all others seem jealous over, and to make all men feel masculine about. A piece of magic is a hat." (Martha Sliter)

........Dear Readers, my blog seems to get a lot of traffic but few comments. Is anyone enjoying my corner or are you all just flying by?

A Time and Place

2012-01-19T19:41:00.000-08:00

I put my homecity in the rearview mirror right after college and until recently, I never looked back. It wasn't a town but a mini-city and one with an identity crisis, small town in feel but metropolitan enough to be classified as a city. I discovered the reason it seemed like Mayberry when I went back recently. My tour consisted of the street where I grew up and a few other parallel and perpendicular ones that would look like a bunch of tossed pick up sticks from the air. All life took place here in these congested and crossed streets and alleys.

An artist friend once told me that there are always people who create art and bliss for others and there are others who enjoy the art and bliss others have created. And so it was in our little city, where each year the Lions Club made Santa Claus come down Main St. in a firetruck the week before Christmas and the ancient Miss Elderkin held free ballroom dance lessons for children every winter Friday night at the Congregational Church. I marvel at the tender memories I've read on my hometown's Facebook page since my visit home.

Many from the group mention the quirky old water tank on stilts that sits high above the city like a huge alien from another world. We talk about Miss Elderkin and her piano player, the agony of waiting to be asked to dance or asking only to be turned down. The discussions are about whose parent worked at which shoe factory, what happened to so and so, and when did Starbucks go in where the A & P use to be. It's banal and boring and I love it.

Living within a stone's throw of the sea now, I don't think I could ever go back to being landlocked again. I use to pity my homecity, although only an hour from salt water, and couldn't imagine being so deprived of the ocean. But I've learned it has a place in my heart because of all the dear things it did for me when I lived there. The fact that people looked out for each other, that there was no shortage of adults to tell me what to do, the natural beauty that was kept so for our pleasure. This meant skating ponds in winter, hills for sledding and for running down with scads of milk pods waiting to be opened and spread like germs on fall days. The shoe outlets in the factories where the smell of leather enticed us as we put our feet in practically free shoes. One classmate on Facebook lamented how much he missed the crabapples which fell to the ground in nearly every yard and park, a reminder of the city's pastoral past when it was mostly a place of orchards and farms.

I am amazed at how tender my feelings are for this odd little place, how I wish I could go back for just one day and walk "upstreet" to the bookstore and the Rexall. I want to get dust on my shoes at the grammar school where we trudged outside every Flag Day to sing God Bless America as loud as we could. I want to hear Miss Reilly from her front porch tell me not to walk near her boxwood hedges on my way to school. I want to open a milk pod and watch the fluffy white stars sail down a hill until they can't be seen anymore.

For now, I will be at rapt attention online when my old neighbors and friends start waxing poetic about the long departed dentist who gave out animal shaped erasers, the kind yet strict school principle we adored, and especially when the subject turns again to a ridiculous looking water tank on skinny legs that somehow I cannot stop pondering.

Winter Becomes Us

2012-01-02T00:44:00.000-08:00

In the depths of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible
summer. ~Albert Camus

I have no quarrel with winter and I love that January's promise is to begin anew. Winter is a time of thoughtful reflection to prepare for the renewal that occurs in spring. Thus, I have created the following list which may help in appreciating the beauty of the season.

Spend some time outdoors even if its just a bracing moment or two before bed on the front porch, taking in the special star show that can only be seen on clear crisp winter nights.
Stay cozy with warm woolen throws at the ready: on the bed to pull up for an extra layer at night, and near your favorite reading nook for quick naps. Having throws can help still a housebound household as everyone settles in under their favorite blanket.
Drink tea and make it a winter ritual by laying out a lovely tray with fruit and one perfect cookie each afternoon.
Practice at-home yoga with a DVD. The gentle stretches and poses will help keep you warm and will aid in weight control through the cold winter months.
Make healthy suppers after work by planning ahead with shopping menus. Eating well is so much easier when one knows ahead what is to be made and that the ingredients are on hand. Use a crockpot so that meals cook during the day and are ready at homecoming. Cook healthful soups and take leftovers for lunch the next day.
Set the table at night using the beauty of candles for illumination and atmosphere. Have your homecooked meals at the dinner table and make it a daily pleasure and ritual to lay out your china and glassware.
Have a "caring hour" each evening before bed. Indulge yourself with warming baths and luxurious body creams. Spray a little scent on your pillows. Try a new eye or throat cream.
Make an effort to wear soft and warm nightclothes, matching pajamas sets, and pretty woolen socks. Have a favorite robe to slip into as you relax before a fire, quietly making your list of weekly menus. If you do not have a favorite robe, wear a soft pretty cardigan over your pajamas. Winter is not a time to give up on beauty.
Have an attractive pair of foul weather boots that are also waterproof and cozy. Having the right "equipment" for dealing with challenging weather can make a big difference in how we perceive the season. Keep your snow brushes and scrapers in the same place for quick access on icy mornings too.
Wear hats. It's been said that most body heat is lost from the top of the head and not being afraid to wear hats will make for a much more comfortable winter. Keep hat hair at bay with some hair care items in your "candybox" at work.
In winter's depth, let your wardrobe reflect the outdoor landscape by wearing icy pastels in merino wools and cashmeres. Garnish your sweaters with favorite silver jewelry or the incandescense of pearls. Put away your browns and moss greens and opt for illuminating blues, greys, creams, and lilacs.
Cherish the nights when the weather is too stormy to go out. Watch a parade of films that feature lovely feminine fashion and style such as Love in a Cold Climate, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, Being Julia, Tea with Musssolini. Rent series of movies from the library that you've missed out on because of warm weather activies.
Drink lots of water. I dry out much quicker in the winter and having a glass of water with lime or lemon nearby replenishes and restores me. I also keep bottles of mineral water in the ice box and pour myself a glass to sip while I am making dinner after work.
Indulge in books. Winter is a perfect time to borrow those large decorating books from the library. Pour over them on Saturday afternoons looking for inspiration and ideas for spring projects.
Believe in the power of hibernation to reflect on what's really important in your life. These quiet frozen days will lead to your spring ressurection when the earth again wakes and blossoms. So, too, can you, if you have laid the groundwork through these thoughtful, quiet winter months and used them not only to plan but also to indulge and pamper yourself with thoughtful care, healthy homecooking, and a contemplative lifestyle. When it is crystalline without, yet serene within, you will see that winter becomes you!

Picture credit: http://www.marryyoume.com/2010/12/glitzy-rustic-winter-inspiration-shoot.html

Dress Code

2011-12-23T22:56:00.001-08:00

Tonight is Christmas Eve and even though I have a small house with limited seating, my annual party has a dress code. I don't expect ball gowns and tuxedos but I do expect a little upgrade dressing. No jeans. I love that my daughter's boyfriend has already called for a wardrobe check. For myself, I try to select something festive and pretty. Tartan is meant for Christmas Eve and I have a floor length skirt. But I wore that last year. Of course, no one will remember except the photo album but this year I can't help thinking how nice something sparkly would be to mirror the stars that will be dotting tonight's clear and cold winter sky.

Christmas dressing in the past was always resplendent. Somehow the pine green shantung silk shirtdresses of the 50's were lost along the way. So too, the wide shouldered dresses and suits of the 40's that gave Christmas Eve its importance and significance. But tonight, I just want special for a special night. I hope I will see some chic cashmere separates, perhaps a beaded sweater or charmeuse blouse in a lovely jewel tone.

In my favorite Christmas film, Since You Went Away, Claudette Colbert's character Anne Hilton entertains her eclectic war-time company in a green Dacron dress and large brooch. Her daughters wear velvets in green and red. All wear heels. They look lovely and fine, even though the year without Pop, who is missing in the Pacific, was painful and difficult. They showed up in finery befitting the holiday. And somehow, it speaks to hope and a better life ahead.

I am indeed hopeful that 2012 will be wonderful, and to show how much, I've decided that even if I don't wear sparkles tonight, I just may grace myself with the prettiest and flirtiest crimson bow you will ever see.

When Christmas Happens

2011-12-18T18:41:00.001-08:00

I never know the exact moment when Christmas happens for me. It could be the day I trim the tree, the afternoon I settle in with Victoria's A Woman's Christmas, or the private moment driving home from work when I notice the Christmas lights for the first time. I only know it's at that very moment that Christmas happens and all the wonderful things about the season begin to surround me like a warm cozy blanket.

I get misty and giddy by turns when I think of all the happy Christmases I had at my grandmother's, the wonderful little things my mother did for us that made us wiggle with delight, the neighbors who always visited on Christmas Eve, the majesty of attending our church's midnight mass, the carols I sang my heart out with the girl scouts. All those things made Christmas happen to my little girl heart.

Then there were the years I lived with him, when I decorated our house with abandon and had the money to do so. I still recall the teddy bear he gave me with the new pearl earrings in its newly pierced and furry ears. Later the years my darling daughter sang in the church choir and made cookies with me, both of us in our bunny slippers, made Christmas happen and come in a rush.

My memories of the Christmases of yore by no means diminsh the Chrismas of now or the ones in the future. I just never know when that magical moment will kick in and Christmas, the holiday I wait for all year, suddenly and joyously, happens!

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T03:48:00.000-08:00

My older brother played football in high school so those four years, Thanksgiving dinner was not at my grandmother's but at our house. There were some things we could count on at Thanksgiving: all three of my grandparents would be there, cider, the relish tray, and the comment my maternal grandmother would make at the end of every meal "Pete (my father), you will have to roll me back to Boston tonight". We loved it. We also loved that because our kitchen was so tiny, it was impossible for us to help clean up. So everyone under age 20 got to watch TV with my grandfather until the all clear was rung and dessert was served.

At the time a cheese tray was not fashionable so Mom kept to the tradition of having a "relish tray". I'm not sure where the name came from, but a relish tray was really a celery tray and it wasn't really a tray but a divided dish that was filled on one side with celery stuffed with cream cheese and sprinkled with paprika, and the other side filled with black olives. I remember we all put the olives on our fingertips, which for some strange reason was allowed. It could have been because it was a tradition that was irrisistible for small children and both my grandmothers knew something about children, having both been raised in families of more than 10 siblings.

Mom bought cider from a farm in town we drank that with our turkey and all the fixings. Dessert was pie, apple, pumpkin, and mincemeat. Dad would put the leaf in the dining room table which then took up the entire room. We didn't have enough chairs so a bench on the side of the table took care of at least three of us.

Thanksgiving at my house is going to be quiet and small this year. Just one brother, my mother, and my daughter. Last night I called my mother to ask her to bring along her electric knife. We chatted about Thanksgivings of yore and then she said something unexpected I won't soon forget. Mom asked if I remembered a coat she bought me one fall - moss green tweed with an attached scarf to wear on Thanksgiving day when I was six. "Yes. It itched", I replied. "Well", she said, "I keep seeing you in that coat tonight". Nothing could be sweeter to have with the turkey and all its fixings, the cider, the pies, and that marvelous and simple relish tray with the celery and black olives.

The Gardener

2011-11-08T16:12:00.000-08:00

An old Greek Revival house came into my possession by marriage. Austere, dark, and vacant for over 20 years, it was a place I would never have chosen myself to live as a new bride. I rolled up my sleeves and began helping with the renovations that lasted five years. We tore up and then rebuilt the house room by room, following the mimeographed guidelines I had written to the National Historic Resistry for. The house was in the inner city and we had no intention of staying there - we only wanted to turn it into a money maker and then build a country home and start a family. As a newlywed, I didn't have much time to properly nest or to use the new wedding presents still packed in boxes. As we peeled wallpaper, sanded and painted, I began to see the charms of the place. I was helped along by a large sepia photograph of a little boy in a dress that I found in the basement.

I determined the photo was Mr. DuBois, the man whose house we bought. His son, a physician, took back the mortage so that we could afford the place. I called Dr. DuBois and asked if he wanted the photograph and told him I would ship it to him in thanks for being our bank. He said no, the gold framed photograph of his father belonged to the house. So I hung Mr. DuBois on the dining room wall with the hope that one day I would be able to have at least one dinner party under his gaze and perhaps use the pretty heirloom silver we were given as a wedding gift.

It did not take long to realize that Mr. DuBois was an amature horticulturalist when he occupied the house. A roll-top desk in a spare bedroom was filled with jars of old seeds and more than a few ancient manuals on plants and their uses. The garden was decrepit but it told me it was designed by someone who knew what they were doing. It was easy to see its bones in the row of boxwood and the snarled rose bushes placed in each corner of the postage stamp stamp backyard. The trellises leaning up against the house had dried vines woven throughout but there was an enchanting archway with a built in bench, still strong and sturdy. Also well-built was a small glass greenhouse filled with ornamental terra cotta pots of all sizes. This garden was loved into existence and it must have been a lovely city oasis.

We completed the renovations and it was time to sell the house so we could build that dream home. I did not leave it reluctantly and was glad to see the work behind us. However, I paused when I removed Mr. DuBois from the dining room wall. I had always planned on taking the young Mr. DuBois with us when we moved. I wanted this elegant reminder of the house and what we had accomplished. But on moving day, I found myself placing the photograph back on its perch. The new owner promised to look after him for me. Mr. DuBois did indeed belong to the house... and to the garden.

So nice to come home to...

2011-11-01T15:34:00.000-07:00

Please forgive me for indulging myself here. We lost our beloved Buddy, our cat, a few days ago. Even though he was 17, it was sudden and we only had about two hours to say goodbye.

When my daughter was small, I, being a single working parent, was advised to get a kitten to keep my child company. I didn't like cats and didn't want one but one day at a farm stand a little runt from a large litter was left alone in a steel cage. I agreed to take him home and instantly became annoyed with the litter box, my chewed fresh cut flowers, and the constant yelping he elicited when my daughter was overzealous.

However, time passed and Buddy was with us through every traumatic event as well as every milestone. He happily posed for pictures with a Christmas bow every year and then a pirate suit on Halloween. I began to see the benefits of having him around; he was cozy and comforting. No matter what happened out there in the world, we came home to Buddy, his eyes glowing from the front window as he waited for us. The people who say cats are aloof never had a sheathed paw reach out and touch their face while they were weeping.

My daughter loved away the fine ears Buddy had by rubbing them too much. The new curled ones gave him character, my neighbor said. A friend looking for my house one day, spotted Buddy with the curled ears inside, and knew she had found the right place. He was not the most handsome feline, always small, but he made up for it with a big personality every day he lived.

We were comforted by his rituals and set the clock by them. In the morning, he scratched at my bedroom door at 6:00 am. I never needed an alarm. He sat quietly on the bathroom rug while I dried my hair and then trotted off to the Wedgewood bowl in the living room, the home of his cat treats. His favorite thing to do was lean up against my daughter's leg as she did her homework every night. He never said a word, ever. But his closeness told us how much he cared. Being the only male in the house, he liked to show off once in a while and performed a series of antics that kept us in hysterics. He was neat and clean, proud and gallant. He was a prince.

Today the veterinarian sent us his paw print with a card. I called to verify that it was really his print. We have his collar with the tinkling bell too and we will frame them together as soon as we can bear it. For now, the house is quiet and still and we really miss him. We look for his tiny face around every corner. He always greeted me when I closed the door and followed at my heels until I was settled after dinner. That was his time to jump up on the couch and wordlessly crowd beside me - his warmth felt through my clothes. He's just not here anymore.

We had no idea he was sick until the day he died and we weren't really ready. But we kissed him and thanked him, stroked him through our tears. He was never any bother even at the end. We will miss our Prince, the man in the fur pajamas. For me, my grief is palpable - it stings. I will especially miss how very nice he was to come home to. Rest in peace, dear little Buddy. Thank you for 17 years of love of laughter.

Live as well as you dare.....

2011-10-16T07:26:00.000-07:00

I happened upon the Letter from Sydney Smith to Lady Georgianna Morpeth, 1820, and it so aptly advises what to do in the melancholoy times that come to all of us. My favorite advice is "live as well as you dare". Going about one's business and making life sing again always shows our personal perpetrators that they cannot send us to the abyss no matter how hard they may try.

Sydney Smith was a charming cleric known for his wonderfully clever letters of hope, faith, and chatty news sent to various friends of social standing. His letter here gives me great inspiration and instructs me to take good care when the melancholies come to visit. It also teaches me to carry on and keep the focus on my own good life when others want to see me falter. I hope if the melancholies are your guest for a time, Rev. Smith will assist you. And remember, living well is the best revenge (blazing fires, notwithstanding)...

Dear Georginna,

Nobody has suffered more from low spirits than I have done, so I feel for you.

1st Live as well as you dare.

2nd Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold.

3rd Amusing books.

4th Short views of human life - not further than dinner or tea.

5th Be as busy as you can.

6th See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.

7th And of those acquaintances who amuse you.

8th Make no secret of low spirits to friends but talk of them freely - they are always worse for dignified concealment.

9th Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce on you.

10th Compare your lot with that of other people.

11th Don't expect too much from human life - a sorry business at the best.

12th Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholoy sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion ending in active benevolence.

13th Do good, and edeavor to please everybody of every degree.

14th Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.

15th Make the room where you commonly sit, gay and pleasant.

16th Struggle by little and little against idleness.

17th Don't be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.

18th Keep good blazing fires.

19th Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.

20th Believe me, Dear Lady Geogianna.

Very truly yours,

Sydney Smith

Isn't She Lovely?

2011-10-02T04:52:00.001-07:00

I love the month of October; it is heralded in by my birthday and it begins the happy run up to the holidays. As my custom, I watch the DVD of Mona Lisa Smile to get me in the right mindset.

This 2003 film stars Julia Roberts, as Art History professor Katherine Watson who takes a position at one of the Seven Sisters Colleges, Wellesley. Julia Stiles (above), Kirsten Dunst, Maggie Gyllanhaal, and Ginnifer Goodwin play the conservative college students to Robert's feminist and bohemian Miss Watson.

To me, the real stars of the film are the magnificant weather and scenery and the marvelous 1950's costumes. It was shot on the campus of Wellesley, just outside Boston, Massachusetts, a place so very dear to my heart. The Wedgewood blue skies of fall are the backdrop for the stunning foliage found in New England in October and as I watch the movie, I imagine Boston before I was born, when I my mother wore the same long tweed skirts and matching cardigans with her Keds.

We are treated to plenty of long full skirts, cinched at the waist by leather belts, separates which include Peter Pan collars and soft Shetland sweaters, heels, pearls, stud earrings, and red lipstick. I believe I have narrowed down the lipstick color to Cherries in the Snow, the Revlon color which made its debut with much fanfare in the '50's (happily, it still can be found at the drugstore!). Miss Watson's wardrobe is indeed a little more "gypsy" but she sports some gorgeous wool pieces just the same.

Fortunately, there is a grand wedding in the film and this is when the gloves and the small hats with netting that perch so femininely on top of the head can be seen. The colors are pure and clear especially a color a friend told me was "petrol blue", a cross between peacock and royal.

Yes, Mona Lisa Smile makes a statement, and very loudly, about women's roles and choices in post-war America. I simply cannot think too much about that, however, when I am mesmerized by the Jonathan Logan separates and Delman pumps. I can almost smell the Chanel #5 and Arpege off the screen. It's a saturating film; a feast for the eyes, and it focuses for me all the wonderful things I love about the fall - it is absolutely lovely. It makes me want to run to my closet for that cream wool cardigan and brown and gold tweed skirt that feels like a cat's scratchy tongue. And when I do find that skirt and sweater, and we finally get one of those fine high blue days, I will be lovely too.

Dream Job

2011-09-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

I had a dream of a job once. And I worked a full fall season there and so it is only natural that when August gives its page over to September, and my current position is so increasingly unsatisfying, that I reminisce on what was the best job in the world for me. Ever.

I targeted the dream employer and when I discovered that a position was open at the women's union, a place steeped in history and women's lore, I rattled the cage of the venerable institute until they interviewed and hired me. I was the Gal Friday for one year, a job that entailed everything from managing the housekeeping staff to fixing the copy machine and everything in between. But soon, my love for the history of the place had me working in archiving the union's massive photographs and documents. In a nutshell, this Victorian young woman got to spend her eight hours per day playing...

The union was housed in a very old brick building. One of the founding members was Louisa May Alcott, who took part in the union's efforts towards dress reform. One of the early clients was Amelia Earhart, whose application I touched and filed - the one where she wrote "zilch" under the accomplishments section. I cataloged and filed away old photographs of the union's cooking school which was once the seed of Fannie Farmer's Boston Cooking School. In between archiving, I hosted teas for the Fragments, a group of vintage girls (median age, 80), who came to the union once a month to knit for babies, having dispensed with WWI knitting a number of years before. They were a charming little group of elders, in print dresses and carrying bark cloth knitting bags, who paid $5.00 to use one of the union's many function rooms. I helped the housekeeper polish the large silver tea and coffee set and ordered petite sandwiches for the Fragments. We hosted other groups too; book clubs, support groups, the French Club, and we once hosted a press conference to announce something I can't recall. I only knew Hilary Clinton was there that day and she signed my program, "Be kind to one another". The building also housed the oldest needlework shop in the country and the annual needlework show I helped with has set the bar for every exhibit, antique fair or ephemera show I've ever been to since. We brought in New York knitwear designers along with sheep farmers from Vermont. I loved the juried needlework competition and the lovely needle art that has all but disappeared from the 21st century.

As well as the needlework shop, there was a mezzanine of antiques, a stationery shop, and a decorative arts shop. Ethel Kennedy bought her water goblets at the union shop and I am pretty certain my grandmother may have shopped there or at least I imagined she did. During my lunch hours, I would tear myself away from cataloging and other responsibilities and "window shop" along the hardwood hallways of the shop, perusing books, considering wooden knitting needles and came home one day with a set of antique alabaster busts that still shyly smile at me from my dressing table.

And the characters I worked with! It would take me reams of paper to describe each and every one. Joan, the housekeeper, who worked in beautiful trousers and silk blouses befitting of such a well respected institution's chatelaine; Anita, a former piano teacher who was responsible for putting together the needlework show, all the while listening to Mozart and Beethoven as she made endless phone calls to sponsers from her tiny office; Edith, the 87 year old shop salesperson, who worked for the union for over 40 years and put two fabric covered jewelry boxes aside for me one Christmas Eve when I was in need of last minute gifts for my daughter and my neice, sisters of the heart. I have never forgotten these women and all the others who ran that place and kept it something special.

Alas, a new director was hired during a vulnerable time and for reasons I and others never understood, turned the place upside down with her personal agenda. Today the union is a mere storefront for what seems to me a cold government agency with a new name. But for all the reasons I have given, working at the union was a dream job one fall for an impassioned young woman possessed by the past. It was the best gig I ever had.

Joan

2011-07-20T18:03:00.001-07:00

My mother has always been a petite little thing. And she's always loved clothes. Somehow she manages to find the perfect well-made garment among all the masses of cheaply made clothes at our local TJ Maxx. My mother never, ever pays full price. She's a hunter - watching her wheel through racks of clothes, eliminating them one by one, until the perfect piece appears before her, is a lesson in stealth concentration. She's a pro.

When we were small and all throughout our school years, we were the best dressed kids around. We didn't have tons of clothes – just nice little outfits that Mom put together from a wonderful designer discount store called "Arthur's". I remember shopping there for days before the new school year began in the fall, watching Mom pluck tartan skirts and matching sweaters from bins. I had no idea what she was doing. But I remember the end results: a windowpane plaid skirt with a creamy background, a soft a red cashmere pullover, navy tights, and shiny brown brogues. She bought my first handbag at Arthur's, a chestnut accordion file affair with a double gold chain. Perfect for my first day of 7th grade at the grown up Jr. High School. Mom knew just what I needed to look confident. I didn't even know I needed a purse - thank goodness she did.

When I was about four years old, a box arrived for my mother. "This is for me", she told us as we jostled one another (there were four of us), to peer inside. Out came a green and blue Pucci like shirt, some slim pants, and a dress. It was magical to me that clothes could come out of a box delivered to the front door. We all loved that blouse but the one item we couldn't get enough of was the grey and navy striped shirt dress Mom wore the day she brought my youngest brother home from the hospital. It had short sleeves, a self-belt and full wide skirt. Rather plain in tone, but we always associated it with the day she alighted from that cab with my father, holding a small and warm bundle in her arms. We didn't even know she was she was expecting! At least as far as I recall. So it was quite an event and she looked lovely with her soft hair in a shadow of waves around her head and her knowing, sweet smile as she walked toward us three holding my new baby brother. On our birthdays, Mom let us pick out her dresses and invariably for years, it was the grey striped dress she wore the day she came home from the hospital. Eventually, she began to yelp "Not again!" But wore it she did until it mysteriously disappeared from her closet and wasn’t there one birthday.

Mom’s father was the general manager of Filene’s Basement and he provided Mom with boxes too. They contained a burgundy tweed suit with matching crocodile pumps she wore to work at our school’s Christmas bazaar, some jodhpurs similar to those that First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy was wearing at the time, and pristine white wrist length gloves for church.

My mother never let us tamper with the cotton candy pink crinoline and satin prom dress that hung in the attic even though I was itching to pull it over my head and parade around the house in it. Mom went to two proms in it; one with my father and one with another boy. I have both prom pictures of Mom in the frothy confection with each of her beaus. It was a gorgeous dress that cost my grandparents a pretty penny for their pretty daughter. She looked like a princess.

Mom had a storm blue shearling lined car coat and wore it when she took us ice skating. She accessorized with a scratchy red plaid scarf and red galoshes. She looked chic even out in the freezing cold, herding us all onto the ice where she would skate with us on winter afternoons. Always chic.

I remember watching Mom fret one year about finding a dress for herself for a family wedding. We looked everywhere: Arthur's, of course, then Filene's Basement, the local shops, and finally Kennedy's, where she found an apple green shantung silk dress with a square rhinestone buckle on a dropped waist. It was a mini and she wore it with subtly patterned off white hose and dyed to match shoes. She looked 60's gorgeous with her now blond swingy hair. I remember her pronouncement "I always find special clothes at Kennedy's" which was actually a men's store that had a few dresses. Later, whenever she was in hunt mode for another special occasion dress, one of us kids would invariably shout out, "Try Kennedy's!”

My mother knows the perfect thing to wear for any occasion. While I stand at my open closet door, ruminating and then rejecting all possibilities while the clock ticks, Mom already knows ahead of time what she'll be wearing and it's always just the thing. She showed up in the driveway for the family's first camping trip wearing slim mushroom colored Capri’s, a sleeveless shell, and a Liberty print cotton kerchief on her head and tied in the back. Always perfect and in line with the event, she was.

In the summer, I recall beautiful sundresses, cotton with some lovely touch such as rick rack, a great pattern, piping, or embroidery and always showing off that great tiny waist. I remember her deep blue swimsuit stitched to look like small quilts of bubble wrap. It had two burnt red flowers scored into evocative places. But the colors were so subtle, and the fabric so unusual and rich, that it didn't startle, it merely suggested. Unfortunately, it became known as her rainy day swimsuit because it seemed that every time she wore it, the skies opened up and poured on us at the local lake.

Mom taught me how to achieve a monochromatic look when I saw her in her cream separates in the 80's. She made an entrance to my party with her shiny blond hair highlighted by the threads of gold in her wool coat, matching pants and sweater. It was a great look for her with all the textural contrasts.

Last Easter, we picked up Mom and she was wearing a Chanel looking jacket in celadon and gold tweed with a small fringe around the collar and sleeve edges. "You look like an Easter egg", my brother called out jovially. And she did, all pastel and cheery. Perfect Easter finery.

Whenever I see her now, she is wearing a great pair of tailored pants, a colorful shirt, and ballet flats. She still does skirts but rarely a dress. She says nice dresses are hard to find. I saw one on the rack recently that would have been perfect for her and I would have bought it if they had it in size 2. It met all the Joan criteria: crisp quality fabric, nipped in waist, beautiful embroidery. Perhaps it would only have been ideal for the diminutive and stylish mother of my childhood and not for the sporty chic grandmother of today. Like all timelessly fashionable women, Mom has gracefully let go of the things that no longer suit her and has let her look evolve and stay current. She never looks back whether it is in life or in clothes.

The grey and navy striped shirtdress lives on in the massive collection of family slides along with the rainy day swim suit, and all the other clothes that tell the story of a suburban goddess who knew how to dress to enchant her tiny private audience.

Lipstick Love

2011-07-07T15:21:00.000-07:00

I strolled through a grove of dress material and found myself at a counter piled with jars of face creams and lipsticks...I caught sight of my own face, colourless and worried-looking, the eyes large and rather frightened, the lips too pale. I did not feel that I could ever acquire a smooth apricot complexion but I could at least buy a new lipstick, I thought. ~ Barbara Pym, Excellent Women

Everyone who knows me knows how much I adore lipstick. It's been an obsession since I was four. I remember well sneaking my mother's Cherries in the Snow and running it across my lips (and teeth, and chin and cheeks). A pal from high school wrote in my yearbook underneath her picture: "You will be a great success in whatever you do as long as you have endless tubes of lipstick!" I got fired once for lipstick. I was working as a hostess in an old cozy restaurant by the highway one summer break from college. I formed a bond with all the waitresses because I used to bus their tables for them as the night grew old. One day, they sat me down and gently told me I had just worked my last night there. "Why???", I practically wailed. Very gently, oh so gently, the oldest and wisest said, "Because, dear, you are always in the ladies room putting on lipstick". I simply nodded sadly in agreement. I couldn't argue. The putting on of lipsticks in secret prevented me from tending to other required tasks. Lipstick has always been a true love.

Currently I love Chanel's Rouge Coco "Mademoiselle". It is the color Vanessa Paradis (and isn't she adorable???) is wearing in the photograph above (I know this because I called Chanel and asked). This summer, I was drawn to purchase Chanel's new Rouge Coco Shine in "Boy". When it comes to lipstick, I am a Madison Ave. dream customer; easily persuaded to try any formula, any color, anytime. I am a girly girl who is tickled to wear a color called "Boy" (named after Chanel's lover Boy Capel).

There is some great dialogue about Chanel makeup in the film "View from the Top". Gwyneth Paltrow, who plays an airline hostess, envies another hostess who works for a more elite airline when she notices the hostess carries Chanel makeup in her handbag. I too, always have Chanel lipstick in my handbag. But the price of Chanel's makeup has grown steeply over the last few years. With my habit, I needed to source a cheaper lipstick for experimenting and for keeping in my makeup basket at home. I found great affordable lipsticks in the Revlon line.

Revlon makes terrific color saturated lipsticks in scads of colors. My village drugstore sells them for $7.99 each with a "buy one, get one at 50% off". This means I can buy them whenever the mood for a new color hits. Revlon lipsticks are bright, creamy, and long lasting. I run through them like nobody's business. Of course, I still keep my Chanel in my handbag and it's a luxurious indulgence that thrills me when I take it out to use. But for fun, I use my Revlon selections everyday as a starting point from home.

The first lipstick I ever bought was a Love cosmetic one that was no better than the stick concealers that used to be available. It dragged across my lips. It was a strange burnt tan color, like a Cheez-it. It was dry. But it had that great space helmet cover of clear acrylic and made a satisfying click when I put it back on the tube. I felt so grown-up.

I graduated to gooey Yardley's Pot-o-Gloss and cool Slickers lipsticks like every girl in my high school. I poured over the color selections in my Seventeen magazine before choosing one at the local Rexall.

In the 80's my passion was for Estee Lauder lipsticks, especially after they redesigned their plain navy tubes into great big fluted gold ones, so in keeping with the decade of more is more. I still remember the heart-stopping colors I loved: Palace Pink, Rosewood, Ruby Slippers.

The funny thing about my love of lipstick is that I have rather small lips. But when I was younger, thin lips were in; they were considered feminine and pretty. Think Cheryl Tiegs. It wasn't until much later that fuller lips came into vogue. I've kept my smaller lips and my large lipstick collection.

It has been said by sociologists, that during difficult economic times, lipstick sales rise. The reason being is that most women can still afford a drug store lipstick, if not a designer outfit. It's a little bit of luxury, a happy spot of color. It's artistry, it's fun, it lifts the mood.... it's Lipstick Love.

Fashion in Literature

2011-06-17T05:22:00.000-07:00

I am possessed by the beauty of the past. And while a vintage novel’s domestic details—like a cut crystal bowl brimming with oranges in a Christmas tableau—stirs my heart, the rousing happens moreso when I stumble upon descriptions of fashions. I crave classic literature’s sartorial luxuries and am always looking for ways to bring them to life in my decidedly 21st century closet and at my dressing table.

Anna Karenina's red handbag is often described as the container of all her desires. It is as red and plush as her lips and she carries it close as a talisman the night she first meets Vronsky. I have yet to find the perfect crimson handbag but when I do, I will know it is right for me if I can imagine it accompanying me on a train on a deep winter night, and it is large enough to carry all my comforts.

It was Willa Cather's Mrs. Forrester in "A Lost Lady" that inspired an earring purchase in 2004. Just going back to work after being ill, I went looking for a lucky charm and spotted a lovely pair of dangling garnet and pearl earrings. Inherently, I knew I was drawn to them because of Mrs. Forrester's earrings which sparkled in firelight being "long pendants of garnets and seed pearls in the shape of fleurs-de-lys...which hung naturally against her..." I've worn my earrings countless times and they remain ever, my favorites.

The tragic Madame Bovary teaches me that dressing at home does not have to be boring. Instead of sweatpants, I can opt for a pretty lace camisole with my jeans, feminine slippers, and a crocheted shawl across my shoulders. For home, Madame wears "an open dressing-gown, that showed between the... facings of her bodice a pleated chemisette with three gold buttons...her garnet-coloured slippers had a large knot of ribbon that fell over her instep".

Madame also charms her doctor-husband with "numerous attentions" to herself, "a flounce that she altered on her gown...charms on (her) watchchain...an odour of freshness on her chemise". I think of these things when I wear my Ann Taylor cotton and silk pleated skirt with the attached petticoat that shows only in micro-increments when I cross my legs. The past brought forward.

Brett Ashley in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, taught me to wear fall woolens with feminine panache. Her "slip over jerseys" with her tweed skirts allows for a lovely juxtaposition in just the right measure: soft cashmere sweaters that cling to the body with the scratchy male roughness of tweed. I think of these each fall when I reach for my wool pencil skirts and soft sweaters.

Jane Austen's novels are filled with ribbons, trims, bonnets, and dresses. Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate has Polly asking Fanny if she thinks of nothing but hats and dresses even in church. I often say that I was born in the wrong century but the fashion in literature inspires me to keep the toes of my lovely embroidered slingbacks back in my favorite literary fashion eras.

Photo Credits: British Vogue

Jane

2011-04-23T01:30:00.000-07:00

I thank my 10th grade Gothic Literature teacher, Miss Otis, everytime I watch Masterpiece Theater's adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre. If it were not for Miss Otis, I might have missed what was to be the book of my youth (and would have missed Rebecca too). This month I saw the latest film version of the famous 1847 novel and it did not disappoint. Every frame of the film seemed like a painting. And while the Masterpiece version starring Tobey Stephens as Mr. Rochester, has remained my favorite, there is a lot to love about the new version and I endorse it highly. Judi Densch as gentle Mrs. Fairfax adds much to dark Thornfield Hall, the costumes are marvelous, and the moors never looked so lovely and glorious. They are a character of their own.

I have once again read Jane Eyre, this time after I saw the new film. Jane is still fresh, still startling. I also read a wonderful review of the film which talked of the story as a "spiritual journey" and a "place where people with great souls had to struggle with small lives". The reviewer also said (and I love this part) that Jane "had an innate sense of self-respect, and there's nowhere it should have come from....everything she achieves, it's because she made it for herself....It's a fairy tale for the insecure and unconfident - the ordinary woman".

Jane never wavers from her sense of self even when her abusive aunt banishes her to Lowood, the punishing and brutal school where she grows into womanhood. Although Lowood is cruel and cold, Jane manages to find a best friend in Helen Burns and her personal doctrine of humility allows her to survive the grim school. The noteriety of her "plainess" in a world where vanity and beauty are held in such high esteem, makes one sympathize with her plight as she mingles in Mr. Rochester's world. Throughout her troubles, Jane uses drawing and art to quell her fears. She knows how to soothe herself. Jane is a survivor who has an unwillingness to compromise her integrity even as her affection for Mr. Rochester grows.

We are still hungry for Jane and that is why this story has been reimagined so consistently through the years. Jane is a flower that grows through a crevice in cement. An astonishing lone blossom that manages to root and find its way into the light. She's a heroine for everywoman and there's a little bit of Jane in me. Is there a little bit of Jane in you too?

Single Note

2011-04-05T13:26:00.000-07:00

Victorian beauties didn’t have the dazzling array of perfumes to choose from we modern women enjoy. Their fragrances were mostly single note toilet waters and colognes – lavender, violet, tuberose – nothing like today’s complex scents. We spritz on multi-layered wonders that combine freakish food scents, hyped-up natural fragrance, with a few chemicals thrown in for shock effect. When a woman of yore wanted to smell nice, she reached for her flask of rose or violet cologne and when she opened it, the air in her boudoir was filled with the solitary note of a single lush flower. The label on her pretty and dainty bottle declared exactly what was inside; a rose was a rose was a rose.

Today's fragrances, as multifaceted as they are, fill a wonderful place in a woman's fragrance wardrobe. However, as the spring garden begins to bloom, I put away my wintry and intricate bouquets and reach for a single note of enchantment. These scents imitate the happy faces of the blossoms that wave to me from behind the white picket fences in my village as I take my daily stroll. Each week, a new bloom shyly introduces herself, first as a slender stem of green and then as a full grown burst of color and fragrance.

Spring opens with the violets. These hardy little charms are stalwarts against early spring's cold temperatures and winds. Their petite purple blossoms elicit the unmistakable scent of the new verdant season. Violet scented oils can be found in boutiques and online and are usually reasonably priced. Next up are the radiant lilacs, honeysuckle, and wisteria. They are also scents that can be found in single note adaptations. A drop or two on the neckline before slipping a silk scarf around one's neck or sprinkled across freshly laundered bed sheets, mimics the burgeoning new world outside the front door.

My very favorite spring scent, however, is lily-of-the-valley. For such a wee flower, it certainly sighs out loud like none of its sister blooms can. Coty's Muget des Bois, although a blend, was created to evoke the single lily-of-the valley flower and both the flower and the perfume are impossible to distinguish. It is no wonder that France ushers in its spring every year with the buying and selling of muget des bois on city street corners and village greens. Nothing shepherds in the softest season and its promise like the “innocent coral bells upon a tender stalk” of the diminutive blooms of lily-of-the-valley. Fortunately, Coty still makes this delightful scent that I call Spring in a Bottle.

There is something tender and chaste about donning a single note fragrance during nature's accolade to hope. Fall can play the symphonies but the spring plays its own delicate notes like the tinkling of piano keys, one by one by one.

There's a Kind of Hush...

2011-03-06T15:39:00.000-08:00

For me, Herman’s Hermits 1967 hit song seems to be heralding in spring, the year’s softest season. And it is only natural that the fashion song I sing takes me back to 1967 in April, when I was just old enough to savor my first Seventeen. The clothes that year had a rare combination of femininity and demure sexiness, a mix that is not seen often in today’s world where outrageous and tasteless seems de rigueur.

As I contemplate my closet during these quiet pre-spring weeks, I am looking for items that will conjure up the looks of 1967 when paired with some new things on my shopping list. My luscious cream lace blouse, circa 2006, will be just the thing with a new lightweight wool a-line skirt in lavender or baby blue. A silvery chain belt and light patterned tights will add a feminine blush to my ensemble. Hopefully, I may even find a pair of patent leather shoes with just the right delicately squared toe and chunky heel.

There is a cheerfulness and happiness associated with these clothes. They’re as optimistic as Ann Marie (Marlo Thomas’ That Girl) as she auditions tirelessly in her pastel Cardinali spring coats with matching handbags. And Seventeen tells me that Loveable’s new floral lingerie will be the “foundation for a day on cloud nine where all things are possible”. Maybe I’ll curl my hair too and add a ribbon. We need a little spring 1967 after a winter that just wouldn't let go. I am thinking only of freshness, flirty touches, lace, and pastels. And right now, it’s the only sound that you will hear.

Someone I Love

2011-02-17T03:18:00.000-08:00

Someone I love has been very ill. But she's going to be alright. She has my spirit, my eyes, and now my illness. I've handled mine well and I will teach her to handle hers. It will become merely a nuisance and a reminder to take good care of herself. The taking good care will be the gift - a paltry silver lining.

It's hard when a child is suddenly not well, even a grown child who is now whole. When one holds one's infant for the first time, many wishes are bestowed including the deepest fervent hope for health and well-being. It is a tender pain when a mother realizes that wish may not be fulfilled in its entirety.

Still, all will be well with medication and wisdom. I've already held a candle and led the way. She will merely follow this road less traveled, placing her steps carefully in the footprints I've left behind. She's not in pain anymore and that is a great thing.

I wish her Godspeed on her journey back to health...and send her all my precious love....

Candybox

2011-01-20T13:22:00.001-08:00

I collect vintage woman’s magazines, particularly, those from the 1930’s – 40’s. They have some darling photographs that recall great fashion eras when women dressed to kill every single day, often on shoestring budgets. I love culling the magazines for images and articles that pertain to working women since I am one, and I often wonder how women managed their lives while working long hours away from home.

A beauty of an article caught my eye in a 1942 Woman’s Home Companion. This one was about good grooming habits while working and I was all over it! The image above was the photo that was used to illustrate this interesting article.

One of the highlights was the recommendation to employ a used candy box in the office. Apparently, every 1942 working woman needed a supply of grooming products for the office which could be charmingly placed within a candybox (for that matter, a cigar box or other shallow box would work as well).

I passed the article along to a few working friends who admitted they had some slap dash and messy cosmetics tucked away in their work desks including crushed eye shadows held together with rubber bands, compacts with broken mirrors, and wrinkled up bandaids.

I purchased a lovely box with dividers that is about the size of a Whitman Sampler. Soon, I filled it with two new lipsticks from the drugstore, some dental floss, a toothbrush and a tube toothpaste, a petite box of bandaids, travel sizes of handcream and hair spray, and a spare set of contact lenses. Later I added a wee sewing kit and some small first aid items. Also, some packets of nail polish remover pads which are immensly convenient when that red polish begins to chip and needs to be removed quickly before a meeting.

The sense of control and organization my little "candybox" has given me cannot be underestimated. It's discreet, organized and always at the ready to make my work day more lovely. Do you have a candybox and what is in it that is essential?

Christmas Beauty

2010-12-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

What makes a Christmas Beauty? That’s what my 1942 Woman’s Home Companion asks me each year.

A favorite Christmas Beauty has always been Anne Hilton, played by the lovely Claudette Colbert, in the 1943 classic wartime film, Since You Went Away.

Anne is faced with managing her household during WWII after her husband reenlists for service. Somehow, she always manages to look chic and composed despite her heartache over her missing in action husband. Christmas falls during this bewildering time and yet she fills her Christmas Eve with a charming mix of characters from her year alone on the Homefront and creates a new Christmas for herself and her two daughters.

The girls wear their pretty Christmas finery of velvet and chiffon with Anne in her green wool fitted dress. Brig, played by an older and adorable Shirley Temple, wears what I imagine is her first pair of grown up pumps, suede with flower pompoms. Both she and older sister Jane, played by Jennifer Jones, wear gold heart lockets, most likely given to them by Tim Hilton, their father (at least in my heart it is so).

Anne quietly reflects on her Christmas Eve while sitting at the foot of her Christmas tree after her girls retire to their beds. It is here that she opens the romantic powder box her husband sent to her before he became lost. It tinkles out their song and comes with Tim’s handwritten wish to Anne.

Loretta Young as Julia Brougham in The Bishop’s Wife, teaches us much about Christmas beauty. The scene where she falls in love with and must have an enchanting little hat is worth the price of admission. I also love the scene where she runs a brush through her glossy hair while sitting at her dressing table in her robe. Reverend Brougham (David Niven) takes this moment to tell his wife how beautiful she is.

I love the elegant “girls” who toil away in the research department in “Desk Set”. Christmas finds them decked out in full dresses with underlying crinolines. Katherine Hepburn who plays department head Bunny Watson knows how to work a red wool cloak at the office Christmas party. Her holiday organization is very apparent in the scene where she fetches a man’s robe in her already wrapped and stacked Christmas presents for Spencer Tracy’s Richard Sumner. The only problem is the robe was wrapped for another man. Things come to a head while Bunny is in her own elegant white robe and Asian inspired pajamas and entertaining both men at her table!

Let’s take a page from these beauties and embrace a little planning and organization.

If you've been given some lovely new bath and body products, take some time to try them out before getting dressed.

Wear something really festive and dress up a little. Create a tradition with a special pair of "Christmas" shoes or a sparkly brooch. Outfit yourself in luxurious fabrics such as charmeuse or velvet. Wear grown up pumps - you can change into slippers after dinner. Pull out some stops and don a crimson silk flower or strands of pearls. Red and green are merry colors but so are pinks and golds. If you have an heirloom piece of jewelry in your collection, now is the time to wear it. Tie on a clean apron for protection in the kitchen. By the way, nothing says serious cook like an apron.

Plan to sip water or mineral water from a crystal goblet during the day. This will keep you hydrated and help you avoid headaches. A houseful of guests along with alcoholic spirits is very drying.

Collect a few touch-up items such as lipstick and powder in a pretty basket close to a mirror. Add a comb and a small atomizer of fragrance and your quick grooming moment will be a snap.

Before your guests arrive and while dinner is underway, take a power nap if possible. Curl up under a warm throw and close your eyes. Don't allow yourself to enter a deep sleep cycle - a cat nap will do the trick nicely.

Don't bother too much with clean up. Organize the tasks if you must but leave the bulk of it for the morning when you will be more energized. I promise it will all be there unless there are any elves still about.

Put on your pretty new pajamas and robe and marvel at your favorite parts of the day.

When you do clean up the next morning, play some classical music or carols on the stereo. Refresh the flowers, replace the used candles. Neaten up the tree and carpet sweep the stray needles caused by exuberant gift opening.

Enjoy every minute!

Waiting for Christmas

2010-12-12T03:57:00.000-08:00

For many years I have said that my mother was Christmas to me. The wonderful things she did for us during the holiday season, the way she decorated our house with abandon, the thoughtful and plentiful presents she wrapped just for a child's heart. She created holiday glamour in a small ranch house that rivaled any Gilded Age mansion. My mother made sure the anticipation was deliciously excrutiating as our excitement built with the daily opening of the Advent calendar that was tacked up on the kitchen wall.

I don't have those feelings of eagerness any longer. My run up to Christmas is rather quiet. I never promised to provide extravagant Christmases for my daughter even though I learned from the best Christmas arbiter there ever was. Yet, it remains the happiest of seasons for me and always will. Christmas is the keeping place of memories and my mother gave me more than thrills and gifts - she gave me Chistmas joy that visits my heart each and every year..

It's what I have done with these memories that create my holiday today and I find that it is the simpliest of things that give the greatest glow of happiness: a dusting of snow to make everything just white enough, my grandmother's handmade Christmas ornament, the sound of church bells in the village where I live.

It's true that when my mother waved her magic wand on our Christmas, everything became gold and glittered. My wand performs another trick and makes everything soft. And as I stand at my window and keep vigil for the arrival of Christmas this year, I will recite to myself that great Agnes Pahro quote that satisfies all types of Christmas sensibilities: "What is Christmas? It is tenderness for the past, courage for the present, and hope for the future..."

And just what is Christmas if it is not that?

When a Man Loves a Woman

2010-11-15T09:31:00.000-08:00

My favorite painting is the one you see at the right above my profile. It’s called “At Breakfast” and was painted in 1898 by the Danish artist Lauritis Andersen Ring (1854-1933).

There are many reasons to like this painting for a “Victorian” woman such as myself: the gentle dining room scene where a lovely woman sits at a table reading the daily newspaper, her sweetly floral morning dress, the green potted plants indoors as well as the green woods beyond the plate glass window, and of course, the well-laid breakfast table. All of these touches remind me of the placid way of taking breakfast that many of us still enjoy on unhurried mornings at home. But after doing a little research on Andersen Ring, I uncovered a very charming love tale about this very favorite work of art.

Ring appears to have been a romantic man having taken for his own, the surname of “Ring”, after the beloved village in Denmark where he was born as simply Lauritis Andersen. He became known as the preeminent painter of Danish symbolism and “At Breakfast” appears filled with subtle symbols of love for the woman reading the newspaper, his wife, Sigrid Kahler.

Married just two years when Ring painted “At Breakfast”, he was unafraid to show his affection for his wife by the use of the myrtle branches above Sigrid’s head. According to Ancient Greeks, myrtle is a symbol of Aprhodite, the goddess of love, beauty, and sexuality, and was often used to adorn Danish brides on their wedding day.

The blue dining set has been said to be a symbol of the couple’s bedroom as blue was the most common color in that room and rare in the dining area. The snowy cloth, a symbol of Andersen Ring’s bride and yet, her pink dress an indication that the marriage had been happily fulfilled. The plants, emblems of an exultant growing love.

Sigrid Kahler’s somewhat untidy hair depicts tenderness for a woman who perhaps had just risen from the marital bed.

For all these reasons, it is hard not to think of Andersen Ring as a sweetheart of a man, a lover of women, in particular his lovely wife at the breakfast table. How rare to find a man who is willing to show his love for his woman in such delicate and quiet cipher, perhaps revealed at the time, only to her.

I am not an art historian or connoisseur – I just know what I like. This painting appealed to me because of its harmonious domestic scene that seemed created just for a woman’s heart. Gladly, I discovered that there is much more to “At Breakfast” than its charming breakfast scene. There was a man behind the painting who adored a woman so and then in his own quiet way, told the world how much.

And I shall tell this with a sigh...

2010-10-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

Once a year in autumn, my thoughts turn back to a small town I once lived in and my life there. It is true, the town was not my heart's desire and my time there ended sadly and abruptly.

Still, when I catch a tall pine piercing a cobalt sky and the weather gauge hovers between temperate and crisp, a slight catch forms in my throat. For a brief time, the town was mine, too.

Autumn begins its work on the gum trees. Their tips turn gold as if they were artists' brushes swept across a child's open paintbox. Soon after, the oaks at the town center, the ones framing the churchyard, began burnishing followed up by the maples and poplar.

I could always hear the branches rustling from my bedroom window at dusk especially after the wind picked up in the afternoon. The trees scraped against the house and each other. They creaked too. An owl sometimes hooted, a lonesome sound, reminding me of how far away from the city I had come. These were beautiful but poignant days as my child and I were newly and unexpectedly made into a smaller family. They were also sweater days of the finest order and we often spent them in hand knits I had made on the hot summer afternoons my daughter splashed in the local pool. If I was ambivalent about this place, I hated it in summer because it was much too hot for a spot so far above sea level, and its thunderstorms were always muted and unsatisfying.

But the town in fall was different when we climbed the expansive incline of the village green that led up to the old library; a booming brick building with an arched doorway that four men could enter shoulder to shoulder. Once inside, the tiny wooden chairs and the scent of ancient books told of a special children's hour. We spent most of our fall afternoons there lost in books and puzzles, singalongs and little friends.

We took advantage of these high weather days and after the library and a visit to the tiny market, we wandered outdoors, our cheeks becoming warm from exercise. My daughter's fine hair whipped around even inside the red hood I knit for her. The scent of burning leaves penetrated the stitches of our sweaters which I could still smell hours later as I folded them and put them away.

We left forever in spring. A friend shot a final picture of us on the front steps of our home waving goodbye. We have never been back. Don't care to. But every fall, I allow for one imaginary visit where I again feel my child's small hand in mine and the trees light our path to the library in burnished red and gold.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.re-nest.com/uimages (image)

A Winter Pastime

2010-10-13T04:29:00.000-07:00

I learned to knit at my grandmother’s knee. She handed me thick white wooden needles with red tops and began teaching me the knit stitch. Knit's cousin, the purl stitch, would come much later in my lessons.

To teach someone to knit is not easy. The teacher must be patient and kind and most importantly, approving and reassuring about all the mistakes a young student will invariably make. I have been both a student and a teacher.

On winter afternoons, just after lunch, the knitting hour began. My grandmother would switch on her transistor radio to opera and this would signify the slowing down of our day and our shoulder-to-shoulder quiet work would begin. Soon, our breathing would be in sync and although I would see her quick stitch movement out of the corner of my eye, I knew that my slow steady stitches would evoke the praise from her that I so craved.

I made scarves and blankets for my dolls while Nana worked on intarsia sweaters for my brothers or mohair cardigans for my sister and I. The winds would whip around the edges of her large Boston apartment, rattling the massive old fashioned sash windows of clear glass. The snow flit down continuously, but we two were our own little snowglobe, snuggly encased in crystal and floating in serenity.

“Keep a rhythm going,” Nana would say. “Don’t hold on so tightly.” “Remember, this is supposed to be fun.”

Today, I still listen to opera whenever I knit alone on Saturday afternoons in the winter and although Nana’s life has long ceased to overlap mine, I still feel her presence whenever I pick up my needles. I have yet to find the special knitting companion I had in her but, through the years, have met and knit with many women.

One group of knitters and I gathered every Thursday night for eight years. Newborns who were brought in small baskets grew into toddlers and the knits we made for them were passed on and on again. Knitting friends can be found whenever a woman pulls out her needles and yarn, whether it is at hospital bedside, a waiting room, or on a train. A knitting woman is a magnet that garners comments such as “My aunt use to knit,” “I still have a sweater my grandmother knit me,” or “I wish I could learn.... (Oh, but you can!).

Knitting is a woman’s pastime, as to knit a garment is an act of love and hope. Love for the person one knits for and hope for the future. Each stitch is a blessing, a wish that the loved one will wear the hand-knit in health and happiness long into the future. A bonus gift of immortality for the knitter too, if the item is passed down through the years, as so many of my grandmother's knits were.

I wish more women knit. It’s good for one’s health, as the steady rhythm is calming, encouraging a healthy heart. I wore a Holter monitor once (a device that monitors heart rhythms) and the next week the cardiologist asked what I was doing for the hour I was knitting. He said my heart rate was perfect during that time.

Knitting is not always as economical as it used to be. Yarns are dear now, but the creations that can be made are immensely more stylish than in my grandmother’s time. Almost all the large fashion houses have knitwear designs now and the garments are very contemporary. In fact, the knit world will often usher in a new style first, as it did a few years ago with a swinging cable knit jacket that later appeared on several runways.

Knits will always be in style because they are so practical and warm. As comfortable and dry as microfibers have become, babies always look cutest in a lovingly made hand-knit.

I have passed along my love of knitting to my daughter, who when she knits, does finer work than I. I hope she passes the skill down to her daughter and hopefully, on and on. I saved her first scarf, a holey affair with curved edges that drop off in points. Whenever I hold it, I am reminded of our own private snowglobe on winter afternoons, when the opera played softly in the background and I heard my grandmother somewhere over my shoulder, telling us to keep a rhythm going and not hold on so tight.... And it was fun, more fun than I can ever tell it here.

Her Style

2010-09-28T02:30:00.000-07:00

A slew of new images of my grandmother have come into my possession recently. I haven't seen these photographs, in dare I say it??? Forty years!

Some truths, which I suspected about her particular brand of style, have come to light. And even while she lived from 1904 to 1987, she seemed to have a "brand", however unawares she may have been or nonchalant. Her style still measures up today in every way. There is little in the photographs that could not be worn today by a stylishly classic woman.

I love her glen plaid cotton dress on a summer day with her basket tote. Sometimes with her dark sunglasses, her hair smoothed back. She cut her own hair, I remember that. Her beauty routines were of her own design: Pacquins handcream, talcum, tar soap instead of shampoo, olive oil for conditioner, lemons for everything. She did not read beauty manuals but used old fashioned remedies and common sense. She had the softest skin I've ever touched.

Her turquoise shantung silk suit on my uncle's wedding day could easily be remade with a tighter line and worn today. It's a stunner and would cost a pretty penny in a shop now. Most of her clothes were made by her own black enamel Singer. The sweaters tossed casually and chicly over her shoulders were her own designs too.

The shirtdresses with self belts, sleeveless shifts in Liberty print patterns, leather handbags, chiffon scarves and a silver cuff for adornment. All standing the test of time in photos. And all on a furniture salesman's salary. The lovely pearls were never real.

Nana was not a traditionally beautiful woman, but she had chicness, style and je ne sais quoi. If you were lucky enough to spend your childhood with her, you would have experienced her lemon scented hands brushing stray strands of hair from your face, the Lily of the Valley scent of her handkerchief, and you could have leaned against her crisply starched dresses on hot summer days.

She had an approach, self-created and perhaps not fully aware. Yet it worked and it is why these photographs have become a style notebook all their own.
Look for more postings on my grandmother in the future.

Let's amble this Michaelmas...

2010-09-15T16:27:00.000-07:00

I arrived at work late today and was forced to park quite far from my building. I haven't seen much of this section of the parking lot and was struck by how rural it was. I could no longer see the large glass and steel box where I spend my waking hours. I pulled my car into a space that gave me a perfect view of a worn wooden gate and stone wall. Beside it was a massive gnarly tree that appeared to be a hundred years old. Its top branches were swaying in the light breeze and I could hear the rustle of leaves just now turning color. I stared at this seemingly bucolic scene and imagined I saw Anne Shirley leaning against the gate being teased by Gilbert Blythe. Or was that Jane Eyre holding Mr. Rochester around the waist as he limped toward Thornfield after Jane frightened his horse? No, I think I saw Elizabeth Bennett with a small brown novel, etched in gold, and Mr. Darcy, a shadow in the background.

Our literary heroines spent a great deal of time outdoors. I think they realized that they were more in touch with themselves when they were in touch with nature. Walks were part of their daily rounds and a form of entertainment. And, since many of my favorite heroines were quite penniless, walking was a blessedly free activity. Great rambling walks were marvelous exercise and a way to blow out the cobwebs and put things right in brains that were often plagued and and provoked by love.

Many of us have had unfufilled seasons, those times that flatly pass, when we are unhappy, grieving, or so busy that we do not realize the calendar has turned the page to the next season. I won't let Fall and the romantic Christian feast of Michaelmas, the season of plenty, to be stolen from me in any way. I intend to ramble the way my literary friends did. I'm not talking about powerwalking but great big ambles across the beaches and into the woods. I will put things right in my head, plan a Fall dinner party, dream a little dream or perhaps I will just pretend that I am walking with Anne and Diana along the Windy Poplars. Will you join me before Michaelmas has passed? I promise we'll sort it all out.

Labor Day

2010-09-06T03:36:00.000-07:00

I can't let today pass without a few words about Labor Day...

Labor Day in America is not just the symbolic end to summer and the last chance to wear white shoes. It is a real holiday instituted to pay tribute to the American worker.

Most of today's workers are far more beleagured than ever before. If one works for a public company as I do, then one knows the sacrifices that are being made in the offices of today. Most companies are worshipping at the altar of the bottom line. My company, which 15 years ago use to provde such amenities to its workers as an on-site physician and dry cleaning service, has just taken away our personal printers from our desks. We now share one printer for 45 people in my department. Many of my co-workers have been forced to train employees from other countries with the knowledge that when the training ends, their trainees will have their jobs. The ax falls alot these days and we've had to say goodbye to many friends.

Raises are non-existent and although we are extremely lucky to have jobs in this terrible economy, our paychecks must stretch more and more. No one in my office has taken a vacation, bought a car, or worn a new outfit in a long, long time. I hear my co-workers on the phone with mortgage companies, banks, creditors, car repair shops trying to renegotiate their lives. I hear the fear in their voices, their worry about their futures, their concern for their children's lives.

So today, we have one lovely holiday to continue our rest, spend time with friends and families, enjoy a final barbequed meal. I also hope we raise a glass and toast the American worker, the Monday Mavericks - those faithful, hard working souls without CEO lifetime guarantees, who everyday manage to stay calm and carry on as they hope for better days ahead.

September my love....

2010-09-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

A hurricane is charging toward my area and preparations are certainly being made. What may be lovely, however, is that the heat's back will at last be broken - it has been an oppressively hot and humid summer. Even for those who love the warmth, this summer has been almost too much.

But September will reign supreme and bring us her queenly gifts - fresh air, high days of sunshine and wispy clouds that tend to tug at one's heartstrings, the remembrances of days gone by, the hope of days to come, and the beginning of the delightful run-up to Christmas. September is always a love...

Each year, I long for the first sweater day and in honor of that, I have begun to knit again. I am also planning to finally make an apple pie in apple pie order, buy a new lipstick, bake something savory, and drink hot tea once again.

September days are gentle-warm with deliciously cool nights. Windows will still be cracked but we will feel the comfort of blankets on our shoulders again.

And as September rolls along, I will quietly put summer to bed: the outdoor things will be stored, the linen closet will be tidied, and I will bring my magenta geranium indoors and try yet again to winter a plant that brashly lives for summer only. I still hope that this will be the year flowers bloom at my winter window.

Everything seems possible when September draws close again - as when a love comes home at last....

Beth

2010-08-28T19:20:00.000-07:00

This is the first in a periodic series of essays on women I have encountered who have lit a style candle for me....

~~~~

One fall, I helped my sister pack her belongings into a small Volkswagon for a trip to college for her senior year. Because she was going to be living off campus in an apartment, I was interested to see her new home and roommate.

A smiling young woman delightfully charged towards us as our VW pulled into the parking lot of what turned out to be my sister's standard issue flat. Beth had a charming smile and waves of auburn hair shorn in a becoming short hairstyle. She was wearing white socks with a pair of Ked's and I thought it made her look romantic and girlish with jean cut-off shorts and cotton bastiste camisole top. She looked like a little China doll with her apple red lipgloss, and greeted us warmly as we were led into my sister's new living quarters.

I became enchanted immediately by a sweet floral scent and noticed that Beth had placed baskets and containers all over the apartment filled with something I was unfamiliar with - a delicious rose potpourri. I knew what potpourri was but I had never seen it actually used before. The scent was delicate and rare and permeated the apartment like a sunbeam, giving everything a graceful feeling. Soon it became clear to me that Beth was the most feminine woman of my own age that I had met up until that point in time.

We were shown the bedroom Beth had selected for herself, which was thoughtfully, the smaller room. It was already set up and decorated as if she had been occupying it for years. There was a bed with a brass head and foot board, a few well-loved petite wooden dressers, a desk, and a low bookshelf. The bookshelf contained the complete novels of Jane Austen interspersed with dried flowers and glass containers of ribbons and buttons. The bed was fully dressed in white lace, like a bride in all her wedding finery. Lace runners covered the dressers and on top were small china dishes holding bits and bobs of jewelry, a silver comb, a few lovely hair accessories, a crystal perfume bottle. A cup of freshly made tea was on the nightstand in a delicate bone china cup and saucer, a paperback book open on the bed. I had never seen such feminity, such fluff and frippery, such fun! Drapped quiety in waiting across the brass footboard was a beige silk camisole with lace cutouts shaped like shells across the top and matching silk tap pants. This was the late 70's, when most young women were still wearing unisex army jackets, frayed jeans, and the no-makeup look. Beth had clearly embraced another way of being in the world and I was her rapt and watchful student, spellbound.....

August Issue

2010-08-17T10:52:00.000-07:00

I was lucky in that my father paid for my subscription to Seventeen magazine until I came home from college and had my first job. The first Seventeen I ever read, which signed, sealed, and delivered my fervent wish to have this magazine in my life for always, was the August 1969 Back to School issue. We lived within walking distance of the local market, and having just enough change one day, I snatched the magazine off the rack and skipped home with it.

I was still a tween, so I was slightly wary of showing my mother this purchase. I had an inkling she might not approve of my reading what seemed to me, such a grown up periodical. If she disapproved, she didn’t prevent me from keeping it and I stretched out on the grass and cracked it open that hot summer afternoon. Like Alice, I fell through a rabbit hole and I still haven’t found my way out, although my one remaining tour guide is now Vogue.

Back then, Seventeen was an extra long magazine. It was the same size as my mother’s McCall’s and Ladies Home Journals. Magazines were forces to be reckoned with. The August Seventeens were thick and heavy too. There was plenty to say in August to a young school girl wanting to put her best foot forward in September. The paper was shiny and slippery, the spine hard and taut. But the smell of the magazine! I could smell the ink and paper, certainly chemical, but oh so exciting and full of promise.

Each turn of the page brought a new fascination. I poured over the ads for Bonne Belle Ten-O-Six Lotion, Windsong perfume, Sears Jr. Bazaar department, and Modess. Each page showed me the young lady I wanted to become. With Seventeen’s help, I got there.

In the privacy of my bedroom, I tried pinning loops of braids on each side of my face like the Bobbi Brooks models. I experimented with “baby” barrettes, red nail polish, chunky wooden beads. I made lists of back-to-school items that suddenly became necessities: Maidenform bras, tights, a plaid raincoat.

One fall, Seventeen introduced me to the maxi coat and I wanted one with the military styling and buttons just like the one on page 72. I also wanted the boyfriend on that page too. Seventeen showed me pictorially how to comport myself if I were to have a boyfriend. I was dreamily transfixed on the images of Colleen Corby, Cheryl Tiegs, and Cybil Sheppard. When the boyfriends appeared, at least I would know how to dress for it.

The articles were of some use to me but my real concentration was Seventeen’s fashion, the ads and the beauty advice. I pounced on my issue month after month, year after year and saved them in a makeshift tower that was eventually tall enough to hold my makeup mirror at eye level.

The magic, the glamour, the hope, the wish - that’s what Seventeen meant to my pre-teen self. The August Back to School issue told me it was time to fold the beach blanket with a snap, dust off the sand and head back home. Did Madison Avenue have a hold over me? You bet they did and it enriched me in ways that still make me hopeful when the calendar turns a corner and heads toward fall.

Powder Up

2010-08-11T10:15:00.000-07:00

It has been hot as heck in New England which is unusual. Does anyone remember the opening lines of To Kill a Mockingbird? Grown up Scout recounts the hot as Hades summers in Alabama and how the ladies of Macon turned into tea cakes by late afternoon; their talcum powder like melted icing mixed with rivulets of perspiration.

I’ve been intrigued by powder boxes and their contents since I watched Since You Went Away last Christmas. Anne Hilton (Claudette Colbert) receives a powder box from her missing- in- the- war husband which was wrapped and sent months before his disappearance. Husband Tim’s accompanying note tells Anne that the powder box is not “so fair” but it can't be resisted because it is also plays their special song. She weeps over this lovely, heavy, round and footed box with a hinged top. I started looking for a powder box for talc but they are hard to find and the ones on eBay are much worn. Most likely, Anne's box is for face powder.

My grandmother introduced me to talcum powder in her 1930's bathroom. Among the things that captivated me in that fascinating room was the built-in water goblet holder, a claw foot tub and a square pink box on top of the commode. This box contained fine, fragrant talcum powder and lying on top of the powder was a snowy hand mitt placed on a small net screen. It smelled divine and I know more than once I made a bit of a mess with it. No one minded about messes at this house, however. My grandmother often gave me boxes of talcum powder for Christmas and birthdays and they always had a soft hand mitt.

While doing clinical work in a nursing home one summer years ago, I noticed how common it was for the female residents to have talcum powder in pretty tins which were sprinkled on them as part of their bedtime toilette. In fact, the halls reeked of the stuff but it was a pleasant smell that I came to expect as I performed my duties each night as much as I expected the music of Lawrence Welk in the background from every TV set. This led me to believe that the use of talcum powder was a thing of a certain generation. I imagined these lovely elderly women in their younger days, dressed in tea or afternoon dresses and smelling of lilac, lily of the valley, and especially, of roses.

For me, I love Crabtree and Evelyn’s Nantucket Briar. And, I wish I could find a talc box with a mitt like the kind my grandmother gave me years ago. Those are hard to find today. I’ld also love a real nice old fashioned or vintage powder box. I did find a round faux shell box with a butterfly motif that I keep my sparkle powder in. There is no scent to the sparkle powder but I like to powder puff my arms and décolleté when I go out in scoop neck or sleeveless dresses on warm summer evenings.

But there is something nice about keeping myself sprinkled before bed on these very sultry nights. Talc fell out of favor because of certain health risks and there are some non-talc powders available. They just don’t have the same soft fineness of real talc. I continue to use my talcum with a conservative touch this summer as I await for blessedly cooler temperatures.

Is anyone else using talcum powder during this hot, languid summer? What kind?

A Summer Visit

2010-08-03T18:01:00.000-07:00

I visited my first best friend and her mother at the seashore last week. I drove to their summer home, the house where I was a constant guest as a girl and teenager. My friend, Paula and her mother, Rosemary, were my second family. Rosemary is my other mother (see my Second Mothers post).

We only see each other from time to time and that's really a pity. But we take up right where we left off - a natural ability of true good friends. They make me feel I belong to something, to them perhaps, or to the past we share. Who else in one's life remembers a field trip to the zoo in kindergarten? I know every book Paula read, every outfit she wore. I remember her grandmother, her dog, her dolls, her boyfriends. I was there the day her father died. Our only children were born the same year.

I toured their great old cottage on my arrival. It smelled the same - the nostalgic scent of pine walls and the sea and it instantly lodged an aching lump in my throat that didn't disappear until I arrived home at 2:00 am. I lingered on the curved stairway, sat on the double bed Paula and I shared in the back bedroom. The rooms seemed smaller but they were windswept with the white billowing curtains I still see in my dreams. The same faded mirror hung on the wall and I almost glimpsed our 15 year old selves reflected back, our cheeks reddened from the wind and sun and every bit of us the height of loveliness.

We walked to the beach and I found I had forgotten how beautiful it is. Memories flooded back of girls on blankets playing cards, searching for seashells, dabbling with first loves. Poems and songs began to swirl in my head with words and phrases from long ago. It was 1968, 1971, 1973, 1978... the years flipped by like a calendar in an old black and white movie.

At last, Paula took one of my hands in hers and traced her finger over my knuckles. "You have the same hands", she whispered and I suddenly became aware that she does this each time we see one another now. We were as close as sisters and I guess we still are if she feels comfortable enough to perform this sweet gesture on another middle aged woman.

I am so blessed to still have Paula and Rosemary. I am blessed to have a keyhole to peek through from time to time when I want to visit the young girls we once were. I am certain it is heartshaped.

Ah, friends, dear friends, as years go on and heads grow
gray, how fast the friends do go. Touch hands, touch hands, with those that
stay.. Strong hands to weak, old hands to young... Touch hands! Touch hands!
-William Henry Harrison Murray

At the Beach....

2010-07-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

I am at the beach this week. Off from work and trying to cram a year of wishes and desires into one short week. Yet, mostly I am catching up with books under my pink beach umbrella. Here are some of the things I am reading this week:

Jane Eyre - I just completed Charlotte Bronte's novel for the 6th or 7th time. It never fails to soothe and it teaches me that perserverance can offer rewards. Jane is a heroine for all centuries (more on Jane in another post).

Getting the Pretty Back - I am really enjoying this book by Molly Ringwald. It's a take it or leave it read as I'm picking and choosing the chapters that offer me something. Molly is all about taking care of oneself - a great lesson for vacation week.

Good Evening Mrs. Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Painter-Downes - This is a Persephone Books feature. I grew up hearing my mother and grandmother's homefront stories and this book cuts right to the chase. Painter-Downes wrote these short stories for The New Yorker during WWII and they are both poignant and history-rich and almost all from a woman's perspective. I am really enjoying them after having the book in my possession for over a year.

Is anyone else enjoying beach reading?

On Bandboxes and Lingerie....

2010-07-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

I often think I should have lived in the 1860's. This view was born of a great love of the novel by Louisa May Alcott, Little Women. Reading this book led to a life-long obsession with bandboxes (the March sisters each had one) and the fripperies they contained. A young lady's bandbox held ribbons and bows, lace collars, snippets of trim, all the things to adorn a frock and make it fetching. "She is as pretty (or as neat, or as trim) as a bandbox" is an expression that has merit. If a young lady had a bandbox of such things, then she must have cared about her appearance and making herself attractive.

Gradually, a lack of frippery has pervaded fashion (notwithstanding is this summer which is fashionably notable for its ruffles). But I do know something that still gives a frippery lover her due - lingerie. How else can a woman still wear laces, bows, wee silk flowers, sumptuous fabrics everyday day but on her unmentionables?

If you've been to a lingerie department (a good one), you know how lovely underwear can be. The colors, cuts, styles, fabrics, trim are all exceeding my dreams these past few years. I'm speaking of quality lingerie, not the fall-apart-after-one-wash kind. And it can be costly to have things that last but the investment is almost always worth it if only to feel pastel stretchy lace that doesn't itch under ones arms or a beautifully trimmed strap beneath a plain cotton t-shirt.

It is said that Frenchwomen will spend over $100 on a bra. Some have them custom made for $800! To have a bra measured to fit precisely, to be able to choose between organza trim or lace, silk charmeuse or silk noil, and whether one wants a tiny crystal or a rosette handsewn in the center, must be the ultimate luxury. Imagine the feeling of wearing such a bra to work under office-appropriate attire. It would be a private secret, a reminder of the dreams of a girl who fantasized about bandboxes and their feminine contents.

I adore taking care of my lingerie, mending it, washing it in suds in the sink, wrapping it in towels and hanging it. Knowing that I am protecting my investment and that these things are made to last in today's throwaway world makes me feel good.

I read once that all women are gypsies at heart; that if any woman is given a feather boa to wear, she will begin to dance and move in just the right way. I think the same can be said for lingerie. When I put on a lovely set of lace and trim I find I begin to move in the just right way too and suddenly, I feel pretty as a bandbox.

Perfume Love

2010-07-18T03:38:00.000-07:00

The quickest route to sweet yesterday is perfume. Each spring when I bury my face in fresh picked lilacs from the backyard, it is suddenly Flag Day at Hildreth Elementary School and I am outside under the flag pole reciting Flanders Field in ankle socks that have slipped down inside my shoes. The sky is always blue, the day is always perfect. Of course, in a New England spring, lilacs have long passed by June 14th but that is the special gift of fragrance; it elicits a place and evokes feelings and emotions that once existed for an entire span of a season, a full year, or a brief and shining Camelot of one's own.

An actress of a certain age that I admire said that she wept openly upon entering a cab in New York which was filled with evidence of a prior unseen occupant - the perfume scent of her beloved and long departed grandmother. Perfume creates time travel with far more horsepower than music or old photographs. If you want to know who you were once upon a time, open a bottle of yesterday and you will soon be wearing the shoes of your younger self. It's a poignant pull and one of the many reasons why I love fragrance.

My introduction to perfume was the day my grandmother pulled down a cobalt blue bottle of Evening in Paris from a shelf in her linen closet. It had been a gift she detested and was about to pour it down the sink when she let me sniff it. I thought it had an intriguing scent but because she clearly disliked it, I wrinkled my nose in support and then enjoyed watching it disappear down the drain. My grandmother always smelled fresh, like lemons but when she was dressed to go out, she wore the single flower scent of Lily of the Valley.

My next foray into the perfume world was when I would secretly open and smell my mother's Woodhue. It was a warm fragrance which was very different and more complex than my grandmother's. I haven't smelled it since but I'm sure if I did, it would remind me of my longing for my mother's closeness and how beautiful she was to my little girl's heart.

My maternal grandmother lived in a city apartment and took buses to her job and exposed to me the power of Jean Nate splash. It made a hot day bearable. Her regular scent was White Shoulders and anytime I smell its heady violets now, I am transported to her bedroom with the 30's style vanity and round mirror and the hot sunlight edging through the slats of closed venetian blinds.

A former chic boss sprayed her office everyday with Elizabeth Arden's Eau Fraiche. It had become a cult favorite only asked for privately at the counter and drawn from a cabinet in the back. It's not really a perfume but a form of toilette water that lingers just a short while and is meant to be a cooling refreshment. My boss bought me my first bottle of Eau Fraiche and advised me to keep it in the refrigerator for summer spritzing. I always have a bottle on hand and share it with a friend who brings an empty atomizer to my house every summer for a fill-up. Eau Fraiche takes my friend back to her "disco days" of yore. I'm glad I can help her make that trip.

As a teenager, fragrance was always tucked into my Christmas stocking and I began to feel the power of perfume as a feminine tool. For a time, I wore Chantilly and my high school boyfriend loved it and begged me to wear more of it. I was conservative then and afraid of overdoing it or afraid I couldn't handle the reaction of my boyfriend to even more of what he liked.

With perfume, we have supernatural powers. We can "haunt" people we love or more specifically, people whom we want to love us. I was at Jordan Marsh in 1978, the day Estee Lauder's White Linen hit the selling floor. It was fresh and clean and people began to associate it with me. My ex said he smelled it on his sweaters after our dates. This time I used more.

With perfume, we can become immortal, at least for a time. Our scents may linger in our closets and on our clothes long after we are gone. How dear to pick up a scarf that belonged to a beloved relative and smell her scent one last time. Another friend of mine experienced this and kept her mother's scarf in a plastic bag until she found the perfume online. Now she wears both the scarf and the perfume whenever she needs her mother.

Today, I am fickle when it comes to my perfume choices. Chanel # 5 is my go-to fragrance, especially in the winter. It's warmth and comfort envelope me like my favorite wool boucle coat. It's familiar and soft and I know I am always right when I have it on. But I am not true to #5. Lately I've been cheating with a new love, Balenciaga's latest, shown above. It's been my favorite thing to wear this summer, as much as my well-loved linen cargo pants, my silk Pucci headband, and my rattan tote. The bottle is lead crystal with a charming cracked egg stopper. It feels great in the hand and meets all esthetic requirements, a very important perfume criteria for me.

I don't know a lot about base notes, dry-downs, etc. but I do know that Balenciaga begins as a symphony on my skin, with brass trumpets and horns. Soon, it turns into a delicate harp where it floats until the next day. There's a flute of a peppery note in the beginning but if I wait just a half hour, it melds into a soft ethereal ever-present delicacy that cheers me during a tough day at the office and reminds me of who I truly am. I cannot be without it right now even at bedtime. It's that good. Perhaps the violet in it calls out to that 30's style bedroom where I am able to find my grandmother once more dabbing on her White Shoulders and smiling at me from her vanity mirror on a hot summer day. Or maybe perfume is just water that smells nice. When you find the fragrance that does what Balenciaga is doing for me this summer, perhaps you will know the truth.

The American Mitfords

2010-06-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

I have been intrigued for some time by the six English Mitford sisters, the darling and energetic sisters who caused so much controversary and interest in the 1930's and 1940's. Sister Nancy Mitford wrote novels that recall a lost world of elegance and endearing eccentricity. Her book, "Love in a Cold Climate", is my favorite story of sisterly love and friendship and I reach for it again and again. By the way, the film is terrific too and I was charmed to see Carrie Bradshaw reading "Love in a Cold Climate" in a scene from the latest Sex in the City movie.

Now allow me to introduce the American Mitfords, more commonly known as the Cavallo girls. They are American because they grew up here in the USA but were a collection of Italian sisters who lived and loved near Boston Massachusetts during the same time period as the Mitfords. My grandmother Anne was born in 1904, the same year as Nancy Mitford and both had a sense of high spirits and gaity about them that infected the other sisters. As the oldest, my grandmother led the way in marriage, motherhood and a life well-lived.

My comparison of the two sister groups does not imply that the Cavallo sisters were as prolific as the Mitfords. None of them wrote books, (Nancy and Jessica Mitford), were friends of Adolf Hitler (Unity and Diana Mitford) or married wealthy aristocrats (Debora and Diana Mitford). But the Mitfords and Cavallo's were groups of sisters that were passionate about each other and they had long enduring relationships with one another that served as a bulwart against life's hardship.

There were six Cavallo girls. One lives still, Laura Cavallo Russo; age 94 today. It amazes me constantly that these sisters remained close and loving all their lives, visiting with one another, helping to raise one anothers' children, traveling as a group, and generally cavorting through life together. It is a tribute to their immigrant mother, Rosa Cavallo, who must have kept her girls in line and taught them to love and lean on each other.

The sisters, Anne, Perry, Helen, Meme, Laura, and Flossie grew up in a large wooden house in West Newton, Massachusetts. Several years spanned between my grandmother, Anne, and the youngest sister, Flossie (and who wouldn't want a baby sister named "Flossie"?). Their lives were not always easy as this was a first generation brood of children (there were also five boys) whose parents did not speak English.

My grandmother told me her mother, Rosa, baked 34 loaves of bread each Monday morning in a cast iron oven. This began a grueling week of cooking, baking, knitting, sewing and cleaning for a family which totaled 13. The sisters, upon necessity, were taught many domestic skills to help out as best they could. Anne (my grandmother) became a gifted seamstress and knitter and while she lived, I was a happy beneficiary of many of her creations. All the sisters could cook and bake and their recipes survive in the hands of granddaughters and greatneices now.

I marvel at the closeness of the Cavallo girls throughout their long lives. None really moved away, and as far as I could tell, they respected and enjoyed one another with no drama, fighting, or cattiness between them. For further clues to my belief, I recently asked Aunt Laura about their early life together in West Newton.

Since the sisters were separated by several years, the older ones often found themselves taking care of the younger ones. According to Aunt Laura, this created a bond similar to what a mother would feel for her own children. Also, without much money, the family had to rely on its own members for fun and games and the sisters pulled from memories of family closeness to fuel their later relationships with one another. They spun a thread of connection and love.

For the most part, the sisters resembled one another but each had their own special "look". All the Cavallo girls were interested in fashion and in the family archives, there are many photographs of chic young women, stepping out in handmade dresses and coats, peep toed pumps, scarves, and sunglasses. I remember Aunt Laura's perfume, Guerlain's L'Eau Bleu, Aunt Helen's butter soft cream leather jacket, Aunt Meme's signature rings and bracelets and my grandmother's leopard scarf that I proudly wear nearly once a week. They were feminine and lovely women. Each sister was unique in her wardrobe choices but all loved unusual jewelry, well-made leather handbags, pearls, and cardigans tossed elegantly about their shoulders.

The sisters also loved children and delighted in one anothers. I am so lucky that Aunts Laura, Meme, and Perry were able to meet my own child and revel in her. I love the picture I have of my daughter on Aunt Meme's lap at 6 months with Aunt Laura smiling in the background. Nothing gave the sisters a charge like a new baby in the family.

Every year, the sisters would meet on Cape Cod for a weekend of togetherness. They would celebrate their birthdays, cook together, have evening tea and even play dress-up well into their 70's. I've learned from Aunt Laura that playing dress up was a common activity among the sisters when they were small. They developed great funny bones and played tricks on one another; my grandmother never wore pants but surprised her sisters on one of these weekends by wearing her nephew's clothes to dinner. Aunt Laura said their laughter rang out!

Aunt Helen was the first sister to go; sadly, in a tragic car accident. My grandmother said "We are apples falling from a tree, one by one" and she was right. Now there is only spry, lovely and ever fashionable Aunt Laura. We are so lucky to still have her and lucky that she doesn't mind talking about the six sisters who enjoyed playing dress-up and entertaining each other nearly a century ago. They were never famous but grew up hand in hand long into the twilight of their lives, playing and supporting one another.... very much like the other group of sisters, the just as intertwined and faithful-to-each-other, Mitford ones!

(Above photo, l to r, Aunt Laura, brother Jimmy, sister-in-law Belle, my grandmother Anne, brother Albert, Aunt Helen with Aunt Flossie in front of her, Aunt Meme, brother Tony, and Aunt Perry. All the sisters are here and missing are brothers Russell and Charlie).

Linoleum, Glamour, and Mother's Day

2010-05-01T17:47:00.000-07:00

My new husband had sent me upstairs to an obscure little room off the dining room. He told me my job while he was at work was to rip up the old linoleum in the room so he could sand and bring back to life the hardwood floor underneath. This old house we had bought was to be made into six apartments (from three) to pay for itself and earn money for the big dream house in the country.

The old chalky linoleum was in a 1930's style abstract pattern of dark black and grey. It was ugly and hard to pull up but upon removing just a few broken shards, I found page upon page of lovely white-as-the-day-it-was-printed newspapers from the 1940's, all Mother's Day ads from a large department store, long gone, that was once in the same city. Most of the ads were post WWII, when men were home from war and shopping for their women again.

I began to pour over these papers, picking them up gingerly so as not to rip them. Yes, they were almost all "women's pages" as if the husband who laid them couldn't bear to part with the important news or the financial sections.

It didn't really matter; I was just tickled to have the chance to see a bit of female life well before my time. There were illustrations of pastel colored gloves in salmon and baby blue. Women in hats with nets, spring coats in navy, two by two they stood together looking off at something in the distance. Perhaps, their husbands or children.

I saw illustrations of all manner of female frippery such as lace collars - just the things to transform plain dresses for mother's special day, handkerchiefs which the store would embroider for free with Mother's initials, lovely perfume bottles with rubber atomizers, small purses with handles of Lucite; even shoes for Mother, if one wanted to take a chance on size; most with heels and cut-outs on the toes. Everything considered elegant and ladylike.

For days and days upon days, I looked at these wonderful illustrations, turning the pages carefully as I sat on the linoleum, ripping up pieces of flooring as I went along. I saved a pile to look at when I broke for lunch. Soon, it became clear to my husband, the job was going much slower than he had hoped so he gave me a better tool to wrench the linoleum from the gummy glue underneath. But the tool only made me slower because I had to be extra cautious not to rip through to Mother's new leather slippers in cardinal red or her new apron with hand embroidered cherries and patch pockets.

I spent many happy hours alone in that room and eventually, the job got done and the wood floor gleamed to its old shiny brilliance. The apartment with the room was rented to a tenant who put a piano on the floor and never knew what glamour with its lovely display of consideration for Mother, once lied beneath....

Second Mothers

2010-04-26T10:17:00.000-07:00

I had a second mother - the mother of my first and only childhood best friend. Paula's mother even called me "my second daughter". I have a dear wonderful mother but my best friend's mother's influence, molded me as well. I have been sending my second mother a Mother's Day card every year since I left home. So does my sister. We know one day those cards may not make it into Rosemary's lovely hands. Perhaps they will then become Daughter-of-Second-Mother cards.

Last year my 2nd mother and my best friend came to my home for a summer visit. I had not seen them in 25 years. When the car pulled up, I stepped out onto the porch smiling. My 2nd mother stepped out of the car with her arms opened wide. Our three way embrace caught each of us off guard as we found ourselves suddenly weeping.

The Mother's Day cards I send to Rosemary each year have many ways of saying Happy Mother's Day but they all have just one meaning: Thank you for including me in your circle of love....

The Tea Tray

2010-04-20T14:58:00.000-07:00

I've never forgotten a tea tray I received while staying at the Copley Plaza Hotel about 20 years ago. I called room service for a cup of tea in the afternoon and received the most lovely tea tray. I'm not sure what I was expecting - a stoneware mug of tea with a hanging tea bag? It was afterall a venerable old world and expensive hotel. What arrived was a silver plated (or sterling?) tray lined with a snowy white cloth. The short but rotund silver tea pot was hot to the touch with matching creamer and sugar. Stacks of teas lined up, a bone china floral cup and saucer and a matching plate with wedges of sliced oranges arranged around it like the numbers of a clock. In the center of the plate were water crackers and small slices of cheese, perfectly round to fit the crackers. The entire tray was garnished about with red and green grapes. A crystal bud vase held a perfect stem of a violet colored freesia. It was enchanting and I've been trying to replicate it ever since.....

Belles Lettres

2010-02-22T17:06:00.000-08:00

Email is very convenient. And it's great to hear from pals during my work day but I love a handwritten letter. I love writing them and I love receiving them. My only regret is my penmanship has changed over the years and I no longer think my "hand" is as nice as it use to be. Wonder why that is.

When I was thinking of buying a desk for myself as a newly single mother, I imagined the top drawer would be filled with boxes of cards and stationery, little notebooks for gift giving, a stash of golden paperclips. I found my desk - a mahogany secretary and for 20 years it is still the best money I ever spent. And yes, the top drawer is filled with notecards collected from everywhere. Alexander Stoddard remarked that she keeps the final notecard of a boxed set for herself and I do too. I can’t part with some of these beauties. For me, one of life's pleasures is selecting a special card for a special friendand sitting down at that desk and writing a note. I am a woman of letters and love reading books that contain letters others have written - famous or not. When something is finally put down on paper, an emotion especially, it comes to life. It becomes real. We can imagine that someone said something or did they? But once it is in black and white, it is there for all to see, especially ourselves. Someone DID care. I WAS thought of. I WAS loved! It is written!

I don't save all my letters. I wish I had the stack of letters my high school boyfriend wrote me from college - they included some charming sketches (alas, he was not so charming I discovered). I framed a note from my grandmother last year. It came with a folded $50.00 bill and was written with "Now you can start your dishes!". My nana's handwriting is lovely as she was. Is there anything better than coming home from work after a long day and among the annoying flyers and bills a note from a friend drops out? Last week, my old train friend sent me a note asking me to dinner. I sent a friend a letter on stationery from Boston's Trinity Church. Another friend sent me a postcard with a picture of a child holding a bouquet of flowers bigger than his head.

I especially love when men write. My neighbor sent me a card addressed not to Emily but to my license plate number as that is the view he has outside his window. Peculiar? No! Dear, rare and special.

When I sit down to write, I am in communion with all women of letters from the past. I am Jane Austen writing to her sister Cassandra. I am Sido writing to daughter Collette. I’m putting pen to paper but really it is heart to paper.

Long live the scribe....

Home at Last!

2010-01-14T18:00:00.000-08:00

After some grueling afternoon meetings and fighting a virus all day, I pulled into my driveway and heard the voice of Fanny Dashwood saying to my heart, "Oooh, a cottage! How charming. A little cottage is always very snug." My little place is still snow covered and with my penny candle lit in the front window to welcome me, I was never so grateful to see my front door! Such as it is, I love this place, warts and all. So I trundled in and heated up potato and fennel puree (recipe from Victoria, November '98), popped chicken in the oven and made myself a dinner tray. Now I am about to sew together a moibus ring/scarf I finished knitting last night. I thought about Anne Frank today and her savior Miep Gies and how Anne made a home in that attic despite fear, cramped quarters and odd roomates. The world is off its axis right now but we do have a safe place to go to every night as we wait for better days.....

A Piece of Each.....

2009-11-29T04:50:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to my 35th high school reunion. I have never attended high school reunions in the past, although I've been to my college ones. I didn't know quite what to expect from this rowdy bunch I have n0t seen in so long. My high school was quite different than the conservative Catholic college I attended.

Of 356 students, 105 attended. I found that most of the women were comfortable in their own skin. The men still jockeyed about a bit as they did in school. The women I knew readily but the men I had to check their badges first as they seemed to have changed the most. After a moment or two, I'ld catch a familiar glint of the eye or smile.

My first boyfriend was there and he gives a great hug. A sweet woman that I didn't care for in school, turned out to be the person I most wanted to talk to. Funny how that goes. We had a lot more in common than I would have imagined.

A sense of poignancy lingered in the air long after a soft spoken classmate with cancer had taken her leave early to get home to bed. Some talked about the recent sad losses of their parents. One man, the brainiac of the class, has gone on to work for the EPA but brought his pretty charming wife and I was glad to see he found a happy love, having also been a solitary class geek. He shook my hand warmly and then pulled me close for a massive embrace. I wondered why I hadn't noticed in school how gallant he is.

I learned a beloved Government teacher had died and those of us in a smaller private circle toasted him with gratitude for the things he taught us that we still call upon in a world so far away from 1974.

Old friends stood fast and conversations began just where they had ended many years ago. Everyone was hugged and teased in turn. I don't remember when I've had such a wonderful time.

And as I made my way home on the long, dark highway, a pull on my heartstrings told me I had taken a piece of each of them with me...

I See Them Everywhere...

2009-11-25T17:12:00.000-08:00

I live in an area that is rich with Native American lore. Indian names are abundant in my town: Annaquatucket, Narragansett, Wampanoag. And those are just the names of roads. There are Indian burial grounds scattered througout our region too, even one on the edge of the Burger King parking lot, although fenced. These minature cemeteries are peaceful and still. And I'm happy that they are still considered sacred and worthy of protection.

On my walks around the high school, I stare at the pond where the swans swim in pairs and imagine I see the first inhabitants of this town. Or more importantly, I like to see what they saw. There is a perfect moment on top of the Jamestown Bridge, when for just a few seconds, if one peers above the railing to the right, the scene is just as I imagine the Indians saw it, before industry, cars and crowds. The small islands sit in the bay water like the backs of huge sea animals waiting to rise. There are no electrical wires crisscrossing the landscape or brick and mortar factories. Just the sea, the land and the sky. And for a moment, I see what they saw.

I often wonder what it would be like to live like the Native Americans, so close to the tides and the seasons. I wonder what they thought when they looked at the changing moon. Winters must have been brutal for them. But they had the beauty of pristine nature all for themselves. Before chaos.

One of my favorite poems and the only one that has graced my refrigerator for 20 years is Wendell Berry's "The Peace of The Wild Things". When "the world is too much with me", I sometimes drive across the Jamestown Bridge, walk over to the high school pond, or I just lean on the counter, rest my head on my hand and read the refrigerator door.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water.And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

— Wendell Berry

Happy Thanksgiving to all...

Hi, my name is Emily and I'm a dishaholic.

2009-11-15T18:39:00.000-08:00

I bought this pretty at my favorite junk shop today for $1.00. It is now a soap dish in my powder room. The colors of this dish are so vivid! I just love the rosebuds.

Victoria

2009-11-14T20:08:00.000-08:00

I miss Victoria most in November. Victoria was that marvelous, warm, happy periodical that published from 1987 to 2002. The November issues are the warmest and coziest. Or perhaps I believe so because my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, falls in November.

Foolishly, I clipped many issues to save on space and to ease back to back moves. Now, thanks to eBay, I am missing only three issues which includes the Holy Grail, the Premiere Issue, currently selling for $75.00! I may never own that one but thankfully a friend does I can "visit" it often.

I read that Premier issue when it first came out but I did not really see the appeal. I was a new mother and felt more kinship with Mothering, Child and Parenting. But life turned a corner for me in 1987 and Victoria became a talisman, a guide for living.

I suddenly became a single parent when my daughter was a baby. A time of bright happiness abruptly turned dark. I was bereft. My first holiday without a husband was Thanksgiving and I was dreading it. Knowing it would be difficult, my mother arranged for me to meet her at a hotel where I would leave my car and join her for a ride to my brother's family celebration.

I arrived at the hotel frantic. One of the challenges of being a single mother, I was learning, was the maneuvering and management of baby paraphernalia as well as baby. To make matters worse, I left my handbag on the roof of the car and drove over it as I was leaving home. Then the baby woke up and cried and fussed all the way to the hotel.

My mother was there waiting for us and immediately assessed the state of mind of her two "girls". She told me to wait in the passenger seat of her car. Mom then unhitched the baby from the car seat and the car seat from the car. She grabbed the diaper bag and the pie I was contributing to my brother's Thanksgiving table. As soon as all were ensconced in the car, the baby blessedly fell into an exhausted sleep. Mom took out a magazine out from a basket on the car floor and said, "I bought you something pretty and I want you to sit back, relax, and read this nice book. It's the sweetest thing I've ever seen". I wiped the long tears that kept escaping from my eyes as I opened Victoria.

As I turned the pages of that Winter issue, something began to happen. I felt a tickle of perhaps not happiness, but lightheartedness as I saw sweet pairs of pastel baby mittens. "I can knit those", I thought. I turned a few more pages and saw a scrumptious dish and thought, "This will comfort me when I make dinner alone", I saw a garnet bracelet that looked familiar and realized I had one just like it, inherited from my grandmother and lying patiently in my jewelry box. I began to make plans again.....

I could "see" this new life, for a family of we two, a family that was still viable and worthy of effort. In Victoria's pages, I crafted a way of living for my daughter and I, one with light and hope, elegance and peace. I realized that motherhood was no less sacred without a husband. And I could do this very hard thing.

My wise mother knew it too, and she and Victoria gently turned my teary face towards a different view on that long Thanksgiving drive.

Of course, I was terribly sad when Victoria stopped publishing. But now I have made my life a Victoria. I know this every time I take time to write a real letter to my mother, arrange flowers in a vase, tie a silk scarf over my sweater, or don my grandmother's garnet bracelet.

What a woman....

2009-11-07T16:57:00.000-08:00

Just saw "Coco Avant Chanel" which means "Coco Before Chanel" or Chanel before Chanel became a famous designer. Admittedly, the film was a bit slow in the early years. Touching, as she and her sister were unceremoniously dropped off at the orphanage by their heartless father. Then lingering too long, in the time period just before Chanel met her true love, Boy Capel. There was just a tiny bit of designing going on at that point, a few chapeaux, a few menswear remakes. My heart soared just before the film ended when she finally donned some pearls and red lipstick as she pinned and fretted about her creations on live models. Worth mentioning is the scene where the Little Black Dress was born...

What has truly stayed with me though, is the woman Chanel was. A lost waif with soulful eyes as she traversed the orphanage, always pinning for the father who never came back. And in her young woman years, I wept inside for her! Without many options for women of the Belle Epoche, I could feel Chanel's despair at not knowing what to do with her life or how a woman who was not traditionally beautiful could make a liveable wage.

However, Chanel triumphs and makes her life a blessing. She was unique in her simplicity at a time when women were still wearing corsets, heavy fabrics, and enormous hats with plummage. Chanel brought a welcome freedom to dress. The film touched on how she began designing with jersey and the influence the garb of fishermen had on her creations!

I adored the men's style silk pajamas Chanel wore instead of the virginal bastiste nightgowns of her contemporaries. I loved her tweed overcoat and straw boater which was in striking contrast to the long dresses with attached trains that contained layers of heavy fabrics that the other women wore. This contrast showed how refreshing Chanel's designs must have felt for the women who flocked to her for new clothes.

And happily, Chanel was really loved by Capel (before he was tragically killed in an automobile accident). Capel encouraged Chanel and recognized her talent. Although, he married someone else, Capel pushed Chanel to have a successful career at a time when beautiful women simply married for money and homely women became governesses.

Chanel Avant Chanel was not a great film but was an interesting one which finally came alive in the last half hour. But most importantly, I admire Chanel because she was a woman who lived by her own lights despite having been abandoned, abused and used, having the inherent sad knowledge that she would never marry, and experiencing the death of her one great love. And yet, she continued to put one foot in front of the other to reach rare heights of fame and fortune. And I absolutely and wholeheartedly adore her style and this was reinforced by this visually stunning film.

Now where did I put my pearls......

If I could save time in a bottle....

2009-11-07T07:38:00.000-08:00

....I would save Autumn. Today is a perfect Fall day and by the way, I capitalize all the seasons. The sky is cobalt, the air crisp and fresh, the leaves have made a soft blanket on the ground, and it's almost Thanksgiving, the holiday Grace was made for. Some people feel that Spring is magical (and I understand as I've had a few magical Springs) but nothing quite compares to the intensity of Fall. It's measured time, unlike Spring which slips easily into Summer, its delightful kissing cousin. Fall ends with Winter's harshness, the cold, the winds, the snow. The blessings of Autumn are obvious, people gather again, turn cozy.

Gather rosebuds while ye may? I gather my rosebuds in Autumn.....

Blithewold

2009-08-13T19:12:00.001-07:00

A rainy, dark day found my daughter and I touring Blithewold Mansion in Bristol, Rhode Island. Because of the weather we were the only visitors at the mansion for the two hours we spent there. What bliss to have the three lovely docents all to ourselves. Perhaps they did not think so as I peppered them with questions as I often do when I am face to face with a romantic house and its long-departed inhabitants.

Blithewold is a 33 acre estate - a spectacular property with lawns and gardens that sweep down to Narragansett Bay. Even more charming is the story of the seemingly social and generous family who built the home and gardens, the Van Wickles/McKees.

One of the daughters, Augustine Van Wickle, I found to be most intriguing, nee adorable. She was a beautiful child who grew into a sought-after debutant and then a wife and mother. One of her daughters is still living and now in her 80's.

I was enchanted by Augustine's sweet bedroom on the second floor with its windows opening to the bay. The little girl touches, such as the hopping birds on the handpainted wallpaper, the meticulously dressed china dolls, and the colorful Delft tiles surrounding the fireplace, gave clues to the lass who once inhabited this happy place. Most dear of all was a framed poem about the glory of pansies, enthusiastically penned in a child's hand and signed by Augustine at age 8.

Other corners of the mansion were just as magical. I became giddy over the massive linen closet between the 2nd floor hallway and the bedroom of older sister Marjorie Van Wickle. I could only imagine the pretty linens, stiffly folded, stacked, and tucked away with lavender sprigs. For today, I had to content myself by oogling the large sterling Tiffany tea set covered with tiny embossed daisies, that sat shiny and majestic on the linen closet's shelf.

A servant's bedroom/sewing room contained an open handwritten letter to the lord and master, William McKee (Marjorie and Augustine's step-father), outlining certain acts of thievery and debauchery witnessed by the female servant upon the estate's butler-in-chief. What ensued is unknown but the letter made for endless ruminations and entertainment for my daughter and I on the ride home.

From all accounts, Mrs. McKee (Bessie Van Wickle McKee) was an extremely hospitable hostess who filled her home with friends and family that she encouraged to stay for weeks at a time. There was plenty to occupy her guests, including sailing and swimming in the sea.

To me, Blithewold appeared to be very livable. Compared to the nearby Newport Mansions, Blithewold is a tiny mansion more in keeping with an expansive English country home.

Alas, the heavy rain prevented my daughter and I from exploring the spectacular gardens which includes a greenhouse and a tremendously old sequoia. I intend to return for the Christmas event to witness the extravagant two story Christmas tree and partake in an afternoon tea with music.

Fortunately for all of us, the McKee/Van Wickle's were a family of pack rats. We have benefited from the many letters, diaries, kitchen and entertainment records, bills, and assorted ephemera that has allowed for the curators to reconstruct the life of Blithewold (and I could see that it was truly a living breathing thing) as well as the very loveable family that occupied it so many years ago.

http://www.blithewold.org/

2009-06-19T16:59:00.000-07:00

She's a Butterfly!

"Pretty as a crimson sky..." I raised her all on my own. Now she is whole and ready to fly...daughter o' mine is in graduate school and studying hard. She is hardly ever here any more and I miss her terribly.

But I know she must leave home and is that not what all good parents want? When she was an infant, I read a passage in a breastfeeding book about how all too soon "your baby will leave you to go to school". I remember sobbing my heart out at the thought of my baby turning into a little girl and trotting off to school one day! That day did come and we were both ready, though bittersweet it was. Since then, we have had many leave takings and comings but I know that we are headed towards home plate now.

My experience with mothering has been wonderful but poignant. I did not want to be a single mother - it was forced upon me when she was barely twelve months. But I loved the role of mother and enjoyed nearly every moment. She made it easy. When someone compliments me on my daughter, I always reply, "I had excellent raw material". She was born good and I know how lucky I am.

And so this year, she's a butterfly...."like the purest light in a darkened world; so much hope inside such a lovely girl...You should see her fly, it's almost magical, it makes you wanna cry, she's so beautiful...God bless the butterfly, give her strength to fly, God bless the butterfly!"

2009-06-19T12:26:00.000-07:00

Warm Weather Dressing

My favorite summer ensemble may feel a bit pajama-like but certainly doesn’t look so. By layering my favorite linen wide-legs, with a camisole top under a floaty cardigan, I can have the appearance of sophistication without looking as though I am wearing lounge wear. The secret to this is donning tasteful jewelry and accessories with clothes that allow the air to move under them. Warm weather dressing can be challenging as the last thing one wants is to look like a rumpled bed instead of a soignée sophisticate making her way to the office on a sultry morning.

I once thought that the only women who looked pulled together in the summer were those who live with a central air conditioning system, but now I know it is possible to be chic in hot weather. Of course, this involves a well thought-out plan.

Always have your clothes ironed and pressed before the heat wave sets in. Is there anything as uncomfortable as standing over the ironing board the morning after a 70 degree night with hot rollers in your hair, desperately trying to remove the creases in your linen blouse before work???

Wear light colored clothing or cooling pastels so as not to retain heat when you are walking at lunch time in the midday sun. Save your chic black items for the fall and winter.

For pants, select wide legged ones or tailored ones of stretch cotton. Polyester need not apply.

Wear tops that are slightly loose and never clingy. If one is uncomfortable with the appearance of arms, ¾ length sleeves offer cover without being restricting and still look summery and elegant.

Powder the inside of sandals and ballet flats and avoid socks and stockings as much as possible. Remember to only wear sandals that fit well and do not rub. Blisters on one’s feet can be seen in facial expressions! Pas de chic.

Classic, conservative dresses look attractive in lightweight fabrics. Go for a simple line such as sheath in a cotton sateen or linen.

Instead of a confining jacket, keep a tissue weight pashmina folded neatly in your handbag, tucked away for that blast of air conditioning in a movie theater or shop. A soft, light weight cardigan dropped across the shoulders and held together with a silvery brooch will look nice too.

Keep makeup simple. A light tinted moisturizer with SPF for daytime, a bright and cheery lipstick, and a swoop of mascara is all that is necessary in the summer. Anything more can melt like frosting on the face in bright sunshine.

Find a light elegant scent and keep it stored in the ice box. Spray liberally before leaving the house for a nice jolt of cooling.

Wear hats. Every summer beauty needs a stunning straw hat with a brim wide enough to shade the face. Ditto a fun canvas beach hat that can be crushed into a beach bag.

Wear head scarves to hold back the hair when taking a ride in a convertible. Take a page from Grace Kelly’s book and wrap it securely around the head and double wrapped tied around the neck. So “To Catch A Thief”.

Go for simple jewelry with impact. A strand of faux pearls, opera length, diamond stud earrings, coral or turquoise all look wonderful in the warm weather months and mimic the elements of the sea.

If possible, lighten your handbag. A structured rattan bag is so charming in the summertime and it will hold all the extras that are required for the season: sunscreen, water bottle, pashmina, scarf, sunglasses, summer novel.

It is tres important to have a handcream on hand that contains an SPF.

Never underestimate a tepid evening bath to lower the body temperature and induce a good night’s rest.

Don’t fuss with elaborate hairstyles. Fluff whenever possible and make use of headbands and silk scarves to keep a fallen hairstyle in line.

And don't forget to take siestas. Lots of them.

2009-06-03T19:10:00.000-07:00

Early Summer Beauty

Summer beauty can be a challenge. The hot weather along with summer's monkeywrench, humidity, can make one's hair limp and unmanageable. However, the worse thing that Uncle Humidity does to us, is related to how it makes us feel: listless and unmotivated. But summer is not the time to renege on our beauty promise to ourselves. In fact, summer may be the perfect time to step up our beauty routines.
A tepid bath in the evening with a handful of Epsom salts is just the thing before drawing that batiste nightgown over our heads. This bath will not only soothe but lower the body temperature and help induce a peaceful sleep. Some of us prefer cotton pajamas with camisoles but the ubiquitous nightie is the coolest garment for nighttime restoration. A friend recently told me that the perfect attire for summer nights is the three piece pajama set: pants, camisole, and matching bed jacket, especially for the nights when our air conditioner is running full throttle. Whatever garments are chosen, one must be careful that everything possible has been done to create a restful environment and bodily condition for sleeping. Cranky picnic goers and their ilk are no fun.

So, despite Uncle Humidity, take care in the evening to maintain your beauty routine. Take the aforementioned water cure, wear lightweight bedclothes (and do make sure your bed is crisp and fresh before tucking in), and continue with your eye cream and unguents. A light spritz of your favorite toilet water would also be a welcome addition to your nighttime regime, especially if it is kept in the ice box during the day.

2009-05-25T17:24:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day

Such a sweet day of rememberance! Our town always hosts a dear solemn parade that ends at the town's war memorial. I love seeing the veterans in their uniforms and serious faces as they quietly lay their wreaths and offer up their prayers. It touches me when the townspeople lay out and hang flags on their porches before they start their grills or crack open their first beers. If there is any doubt that patriotism no longer exists, one must simply visit our little town to see that we have not forgotten!

And such a high day we had! The cobalt blue sky held the warm sun which acted as though it had nothing better to do then make crystals and diamonds for us all. The beautiful weather gave this holy and honorable holiday a poignancy that stirred my soul and I am glad I took the time to attend the parade and service once again. Where would we be without this old tradition that ushers in our American summer and causes us to pause in rememberance and gratitude for all the courageous soldiers who saved the things that matter most?

2009-05-02T20:02:00.000-07:00

Hello and Welcome

Welcome to "A Lovely Inconsequence", my blog. I will be writing about life, love, beauty, fashion, knitting, books, cooking, entertaining and all things lovely, inconsequenually and otherwise....