April 17, 2019

My daughter has a clear memory, and I won’t dispute it because it is, after all, her memory. I’m just confused by it. She insists that when she was growing up, I was adamant that one simply did not use a light colored purse, or wear white, until after Easter. Apparently, I made this point to her on several occasions.

That is not a memory I share—at least the part about my being adamant, almost to the point of “pounding it into her head” (her words, not mine). Now, the ‘no white until after Easter’ was indeed one of the fashion rules when I was growing up. Along with having to have a brand new, pretty outfit to wear to church on Easter Sunday. I can recall the first purse I ever owned was in fact part of an Easter outfit when I was about five or six—a white plastic purse that gleamed so bright you needed sunglasses. The outfit also boasted a scratchy coat and socks, and shoes I was not to scuff, no, not one little bit. Even as a child, I couldn’t understand what all that had to do with God. I couldn’t imagine He cared if I wore a brand-new prissy outfit or if my white shoes were scuffed, or not.

Fortunately, fashion is an ever-changing concept. I might indeed change my purse after this weekend, but only because the new black one I bought in Texas is a fair bit larger than I’m used to. And yes, I have a beige purse hanging in my closet because, while I no longer proselytize about the necessity of changing purses (if ever I did), I still somewhat practice the custom. I’ll likely change my purse sometime before summer.

Times change and fashions change, but apparently I do not, overly much.

My hair is very long now. Longer than it’s ever been in my life. My long hair is not a fashion statement, it is a testament to the fact that I don’t apparently seem to have any rats’ butts left, and thus can’t give any to anyone for anything. I just can’t be bothered going and getting a few inches lopped off my hair. I don’t like short hair, because I can’t make it neat. Bedhead, which I get every morning when I have short hair, has only one cure, and that’s water. Who wants a wet head every morning? Not me. I like my hair long enough so that I am able to put up without a thousand hair strands sticking out. My hair is well past that standard, now. Every morning I take about thirty seconds and use a scrunchy and a clip to put my hair up. It looks neat, nothing sticking out ala Albert Einstein, and that’s all I care about.

Despite the fact it’s now fashionable to wear colors and shades that are quite bright and in my opinion clash, I don’t do so. I’m sorry, but yes, my brain synapses that are connected into the part of my brain that denotes the concept of “eye-bleeding sights” have been completely formed, they’re solid, and you will never see me wearing orange and red together; nor pink and red; nor blue and green, which, according to an old saw, “should never be seen except, of course, in the washing machine”.

The fact that it doesn’t appear to be mandatory that women leave the house with their hair neatly groomed, smooth, and tidy-looking means hey, my “messy bun” original updo with a clip thrown in for good measure is just fine. I can’t tell you how relieved I am about that because, quite frankly I’m not. I really don’t care what others think. It’s what I think, at least when it comes to my appearance, that counts. I find it interesting that my inner curmudgeon, which has been emerging occasionally for some fresh air lately, doesn’t extend that same tenet to others. Sometimes, when I’m watching live television, I can be heard grumbling words to the effect of, “somebody ought to tell that woman about the modern inventions of combs, brushes and hairspray”.

The fact that I will think these things let alone say them out loud does not bode well for the kind of little old lady I may end up being when they have to put me in the home. I’m a bit concerned about that, because I really don’t want “miserable old bitch” to become a part of my name at that point. But I digress.

Springtime is unfolding, with a few fits and starts, but unfolding, nonetheless. We’ll soon be headed to the garden center to purchase our pansies, and indeed all the perennial flowers in my gardens are poking their little shoots up, checking to see if the coast is clear, or not.

Spring truly is my favorite season. It reminds me that life is a cycle, and that no matter how dismal the winter, or how discouraged we may become thanks to cold temperatures and ice, green shoots and tree buds will ever, in their own good time, appear.

The constancy of nature proves to us that in the end, there is something in existence much greater than ourselves. Knowing that, is, for me, a great comfort.

To those who observe it, I wish you a Happy Easter. To those who observe Passover, chag Pesach samech.

To everyone everywhere, may joy and laughter be familiar friends in the days and months to come. 


Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury