still stylin'

My mom went out to dinner the other night. She had a wonderful time, and it was a joy to hear her sound so happy for the first time in months. She’d had a fall a few weeks ago, always a concern for a 91 year old, and although she’d broken no bones, she’d been in pain and ailing ever since. But this week she went out with my brother, his wife and their two sons to celebrate her grandson’s 14th birthday at a local family style restaurant. There was wine and pasta and a chocolate cake with candles, and to hear my mother tell it, the post- Oscar parties should have been as lively.

“I wore my Chinese Robe!” she told me delightedly.

Mom’s ‘Chinese Robe’ is now her favorite ‘Saturday night date’ outfit. It has a Mandarin collar, wide bell sleeves and a vaguely oriental pattern in fuchsia, cobalt and yellow. She wears it with little flat gold-toned ballet style slip-ons. It’s extremely attractive. But it’s still a robe.

“Mom, now why would you wear a robe out to dinner?” I asked in the manner of a 12 year old girl whose mother has just shown up at a local PTA meeting in acid washed jeans and a hair net.

"I don't care!" she replied firmly. "It's my favorite. It's comfortable. And it looks nice on me."

*~*~*

When she was young, my mother was a dance hostess at the Arcadia Ballroom in New York. She was petite and delicate featured with dark, chestnut colored hair, clear pale skin and sky blue eyes. I have a dress she used to wear, and although I doubt it's from this particular period, it is typical of her style. It's a tomato-red satin crepe de Chine, overlaid in lace of the same color. The collar is wide across the shoulders and narrows to a V at the small of the back. Cut on the bias, it has cap sleeves, a fitted waist and a full skirt ~ the kind that swirls straight out at a dancer's pivot. The kind that twirls for the pure pleasure of it's own sparkling movement. The kind that Ginger used to wear when she danced with Fred for the cameras.

The fabric is sprinkled throughout with the tiniest of rhinestones; when I was young I thought they were diamonds. It still bears the hand sewn label of the private dressmaker my mother used to use in Manhattan. It is easily the most beautiful thing in my closet, and the only garment I have that positively insists to be called a 'frock'. Just slipping into that dress is enough to make one feel like Ava Gardner sashaying into the 21 Club, late for a date with Sinatra; all French perfume and gold hoop earrings, rustling silks and Dom Perignon. Exuding womanly mystique and sex. Unabashed femininity. I love that dress. I've never had the courage to wear it out anywhere, although I tell myself someday I will. The sad little truth is that I haven't got the verve to pull off a dress like that.

But she did. In a dress like that, she was a knockout. In a dress like that, she could slay dragons. The last time she wore it, she told me, she attracted wolf whistles. She put it away and never wore it again. Ladies, even beautiful ones, do not want that kind of attention.

*~*~*

Now this beautiful, stylish woman wears housecoats out to dinner. As she says, she's 90, it's comfortable and it really does look nice on her. So if Britney and Paris can paint the town red in what appears to be their underwear, who am I to say my little mom can't show up at the Olive Garden in her Chinese Robe for a little rose' and a plate of spaghetti? If anyone can make it work, she can.

The last time we out shopping, a lady approached and gently touched my mother on her arm. "My, you have the most beautiful blue eyes!" she exclaimed. Mom looked up from her walker, smiled sweetly and said "Thank you." She looked back at me, crinkled her nose, shrugged her shoulders and smiling, walked on.

Yeah, Ma. I get it. It isn't about the clothes at all. Never was. It's about who's wearing them. And baby, you still got it.

I'd whistle, but I know how much you hate that.

art appreciation

"funraisers" by Sandra Jones Cambell

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

three smart Women

of serious mien

In need of culture felt

So into a car, open-topped

They cruised

For art, their hearts to melt

But first a bite! They thought themselves

And perhaps a dollop

The Terrace was lovely, The food not good

But the drinks ~ they packed a wallop

A gallery or two they thought

And then perhaps a claret

For art , we know, will cleanse the soul

And so perchance the palate

Yay ~ on they wandered, room to room

To bistro , bar and patio

Till, hark; a tavern! they have art!

And the music made them glad-io

they spoke in Arabic along the way

or so the town drunk told them

they laughed and ate and pondered art

so there! Thou das't not scold them!

what lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why

It’s been raining in California for days on end now. Uncharacteristically fierce, thundering storms with powerful gusts and downpours. I’m a melancholy thing by nature, and in general find comfort in these blue gray days of seamless sad serenity. I look forward to, and inhabit them; it seems to me the only time when my interior and exterior worlds rest peacefully side by side; for this brief period of time, at least, unified.

But these storms have brought deadly landslides and unaccustomed sorrow to this land so blessed by nature, and the pleasure of solitary afternoons delving into books by the fire has proven elusive. I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity, and the things I’ve left undone. A poem keeps running through my mind, in particular the line, “…but the rain is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh upon the glass and listen for reply…”

I keep thinking too that I had planned a painting inspired by this poem, which I'd begun sketches for a long time ago. This canvas is fully realized in my mind in shades of gray and mauve and indigo, with slashes of deep scarlet, created in rich oils applied with a thick impasto brush. It is beautiful and evocative, residing there quietly in my mind's eye. It beckons at moments like these, and chides. As do so many things I have left undone. And unsaid. The roads not taken. The challenges un-embraced. The losses so long unmourned.

The rain is full of ghosts tonight.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,

I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

* ~ * ~ *

6 degrees of trepidation

Monday, January 31, 2005

I haven’t been around for a while because I’ve been busy trying to find just the right shades of brown to put back in my lately graying, formerly blondish-brunette sorta hair. The reason I was doing so was because I was going to a slumber party with five other gals and wanted to look, if not my best, at least presentable. I met the gang at Trish’s house late Saturday afternoon. I knew Trish, who knew Robbie and Andrea, who knew DiAnne and Carol. Some of us had never met before, except through our journals. Everyone knew Hunny.

I’ve always thought of my journal as an abstract piece, a breezy little bit of me that I could send out into an unknown universe without consequence or cause. Like a Navaho sand painting or a Buddhist mandala, I thought of these pages as ephemeral ~ objects created to a specific purpose; which, once completed, had fulfilled their objectives and need exist no longer. Such pieces are always anonymous, for the identity of the creator is unimportant ~ it's the act of creating, as meditation, ritual or prayer, that gives the exercise meaning. It's one of the reasons I've never backed up the files; it seemed somehow to cheat that sense of writing on the net as temporary and immaterial; a kind of great cosmic shout out that, once expressed, required and expected no other result.

In the year or so that I've been reading and writing, I've come to know, or imagine I know, other wandering souls who, for one reason or another, have felt the same communicative impulse. And I've thought of my virtual world in here as complete and separate from my actual existence because, well; up until recently, it always has been.

We all give up a certain amount o f privacy in these exercises ~ some more, some less ~ but every one of us lays bare an element of ourselves to a unknown, untested, and potentially hostile cyber-world. We present ourselves as genuinely as we can, and reach out and invite others to get to know us if they will. And they do, but always at a remove; like tinting one's hair, what is presented is always a matter of choice, and to step outside of this artificial construct is to sacrifice a huge element of control. It leaves us all vulnerable, and requires a certain amount of trust in what is, to a large extent, a self-selecting but disparate group of relative strangers.

My fellow slumber party girls were wives and mothers, professional women and friends, and I was truly moved to meet in person the beautiful young women behind the gauzy drapery of the internet. My only regret is that there was not enough time to get to know them better on an individual basis. Maybe next time. Maybe in their journals.

As I write this on Monday, it's a glorious day in California ~ the sun is shining, the wind is blowing and the girls are loaded up in Robbie's blue convertible and headed for San Diego ~ elusive, ethereal still, but intangible no longer.

open letter to george bush

Dear George,

You don’t mind if I call you George, do you? I know you’re a folksy kind of guy, a real ‘man of the people’ as they used to say at Yale. Around here we usually refer to you as ‘The Idiot Boy-Prince,’ but it’s an awkward term and doesn’t roll off the tongue. So I’ll just call you George, and you can call me anytime.

First off, kudos on the election, man. None of us believed you had it in you, I swear. Imagine; a failed businessman and a rich man’s son who dodged the draft, can barely read his own press releases and who needed an electronic device planted in his ear to be able to respond to questions during televised ‘debates,’ actually winning over an intelligent, informed, Viet Nam war veteran who not only can read but can respond to questions with considerable thought and intelligence! Not with brevity, though, more’s the pity. If there’s one thing the American people won’t tolerate it’s a leader who thinks and speaks at a deliberate pace, right George? Heh-heh-heh.

And rushing all those electronic voting machines into service, even though the experts told you that they could be hacked by any clever teenager with a Compaq and 30 seconds to spare? You know; the e-machines owned by your buddies, including the one who promised to “deliver Ohio to George Bush?” Did they ever!

Of course, it was the fact that your boys Rove, Wolfowitz et al managed to convince all those red states that we’re in the midst of a Holy War between the good people who watch PAX TV and the truly fabulous people who watch ‘Will and Grace’ and that the future of marriage and meatloaf depended on the outcome that really did the trick. "Idiot Boy" hell ~ that was genius! Can’t find any Weapons of Mass Destruction? The alleged reason for going to war? Psshaw. Like Jon Stewart said, it’s about dudes kissin' dudes, baby! And Britney Spears’ right to marry any trucker she meets. And Donald Trump’s new reality show, “Who Wants to be My Next Wife?”

But by now you’re wondering what my point was, and come to think of it so am I! You’re just so easy to talk to, George; that’s why so many voted for you; they said that you’re the one they wanted to have a beer with; not some guy who would talk to them like he was actually smarter than they were. Like that’s what you want in a President! Sheesh!

Anyways, here’s the thing, George. Let’s just say that 51% of the American people voted for you. That means 49% of the voting public voted for someone else. I know it’s hard, so I’ll do the math for you: you won by a scant 2% of the vote. 2%. That’s not a mandate; that’s a margin of error. So that sweeping hurricane of mass destruction you’ve got planned, including: obliterating social security, eliminating taxes for the wealthy and imposing them on the poor and middle class; dismantling all environmental and consumer protections, institutionalizing torture and negating civil rights protections and advancements made since the 1950’s, to name just a few; well, you just haven’t got the right to do it. Period. We’ll fight you, George. And this is why:

1,370 American soldiers have been killed, 10,000 soldiers injured and at least 100,000 Iraqi people are dead in a war that is so shrouded in propaganda that we never see the coffins coming home. You and your cronies spent $40 million on smug, self-congratulatory black tie keggers while good men and women, many of whom voted for you, wept over the loss of wives, husbands, brothers, sisters, sons, and daughters.

And still, in your inaugural speech you had the astonishing gall to ask our youngest citizens to believe the “evidence of your eyes” and “make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants.” As your own shining daughters of privilege looked on, wearing designer gowns and carefree smiles. You didn’t mention when they’d be leaving for boot camp.

Shame on you, Mr. President. Shame on us all.

Sincerely,

aloha and don't forget to recycle

”Aloha!“ she sings brightly, her voice high and sweet as a child’s. She learned the word when we took her on a trip to Hawaii some ten years ago, and she prefers it now to ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’. So do I.

“Join me,” she says.

She is lying on her back on the bed, her knees drawn up to her chest, her eyes closed, rocking gently. I lay down next to her and draw my knees up.. She leans over to rest her head against my shoulder. I close my eyes and smile. Separated by miles, we don’t see each other often enough to take such moments for granted. We keep finding excuses to touch each other, although we don’t really need any. We are too well aware of time as a gift and that every goodbye could easily be our last.

She takes my hand. Her fingers are long and smooth and cool as polished stone, comforting to the touch. They are like marble.

“Mom, you have no fingerprints,” I say.

“No. They must have worn off.”

“Great! Now you can commit the perfect crime.” We ponder the possibilities.

“I could rob a bank,” she ventures. We consider.

“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a fabulous jewel heist. Or the perfect murder.” I think of my nasty next door neighbors.

“Oh, no! I don’t think I could kill anybody.” Hmn. Too bad.

“OK. We’ll do the bank thing. We certainly need the money. I could drive the getaway car. But see, that’s a problem; it’s not the execution of the theft I’m worried about ~ it’s the getaway. You’re not exactly Speedy Gonzales, you know. Fingerprints won’t matter; they’d nab you at some point during the 45 minutes it takes you to wobble to the curb.” We laugh.

She uses an aluminum walker all the time now. She has spondylosis, among other symptoms of advanced aging. Her spine is losing fluid and fusing; her posture forms a permanent U-turn. She faces the ground when she walks. She hates this infirmity; it embarrasses her. When her synapses aren’t entirely firing, she thinks she’s being recycled.

“What’s that thing that I am?” she asks, not for the first time, as we’re looking for a parking space at Randall’s Market. “Recycled? Get my sticker out of the glove compartment so we can park in ‘Recycling’…oh, no. That’s not the right word… what word am I looking for?”

"Handicapped, Ma. The word is 'handicapped.' But I prefer 'recycled.'

She smiles. "Yeah. So do I."