A Tale, and a List, of Summer Books

A Tale, and a List, of Summer Books

Chapter One
Pink dusk was falling by the time Maria drove down the winding, rutted drive to Aunt Leila’s. Rolling down the windows to breathe in the dawn of a summer night, she'd felt her shoulders relaxing with each bump and bounce the old Rover endured.  This was the perfect spot for a summer holiday.  It always had been.  A rambling old house nestled into the cove where waves the colour of mermaid’s eyes licked a rocky beach and salted sea breezes blew through the always open windows.  Alice, Amanda and Anne had been arguing in the back seat (they’d been arguing since the car pulled out of the drive) and Maria chuckled a little to herself as she visualized their reaction to Aunt Leila’s lack of modernity.  She was prepared for the wailing when her daughters discovered the old lady had no internet and only spotty phone reception.  In fact, the only television was a twelve inch black and white that her aunt plugged in when a storm was blowing to see if evacuation was recommended, though to be honest, she’d never known Aunt Leila to heed a single one of those warnings.  It had been so late by the time they’d arrived, Maria and her girls had just tumbled straight into bed.

Now it was morning and Maria lay, as cool as a cat in the starched linen sheets, waiting.  It was already past nine, and she’d heard nothing from the girls. No expected declaration of boredom.  No histrionics, no arguments.  Maria sighed, and stretched.  Swinging out of bed, she felt the coolness of the wide wooden floors on her bare feet as she cracked open her bedroom door and gazed both ways down the hallway.  The old stairs creaked as she went down.  She paused for a moment to listen again.  All was quiet.  She walked through the fragrant sitting room where a tall glass vase held an armload of lilacs and into the sunny kitchen where she found Aunt Leila reading the paper at the polished wooden table.  

“Where are the girls?”, Maria asked.

“In the library”, said her aunt with a sly smile....

Perfect Summer Holiday Books to Capture
 Even the Most Distracted Imaginations:

The Great Unexpected 

by Sharon Creech

Splendors and Glooms

By Laura Amy Schlitz

Captain Scurvy’s Most Dastardly Pop-Up Pirate Ship

by Steve Cox and Nick Denchfield

How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare

By Ken Ludwig


Chapter Two

Peeking through a crack in the library door, Maria was astonished to see all three girls engrossed in their reading, little Alice curled up with Leon, her aunt’s placid old dog.   Shaking her head in disbelief, Maria tiptoed down the hallway to the bath. 

There she found a stack of enticing books, some cool lemon water and a bottle of Aunt Leila’s homemade bubble bath.  Maria could not believe her good fortune.  Which book to choose?

Summer Books to Get Lost Inside:

Independent People

by Halldor Laxness

The Professor of Poetry 

by Grace McCleen

The Golem and the Jinni

by Helene Wecker

Homemade Summer
by Yvette Van Boven

Chapter Three

Downstairs in the kitchen, Leila sat down her tea cup and listened.  All was quiet, blessedly quiet.  She could make her way to the studio now without interruption.  Pulling on her boots, she opened the back door and followed the pathway up through the garden, pushing back lilac blossoms as she went.  Ever vigilant, Leon heard the familiar click in the door that no one else heard and wiggled out from behind Alice to follow Leila.  He was beside her by the time she pushed open the weathered studio door.  She paused a moment before the painting by the window.  Still not quite right, she thought.  Too much teal.  Ah well, she would finish it later.  Right now she wanted to read.  Running her long index finger along the spines of her books, she wondered which one to spend the afternoon with.  Let’s see... maybe this one?

Summer Books to Inspire:

Daily Rituals, How Artists Work

by Mason Currey

E. B. White on Dogs

Edited by Martha White

Tell About Night Flowers

Eudora Welty’s Gardening Letters, 1940-1949

Selected and Edited by Julia Eichelberger

The Charleston Bulletin Supplements

by Virginia Woolf and Quentin Bell

Chapter Four

With everyone reading now, Leon breathed a long deep sigh and turned three times in his bed beneath open window.  He could hear the splash and shush of the waves.  He loved that sound.  Somewhere off in the distance, well over the back of the hill, he thought he heard the bleats and baahs of the neighbour’s sheep.  He thought of Pip the border collie and chuckled softly to himself as he thought of him racing back and forth beneath the sun in his eternal chase for those sheep. 

 Ah, thought Leon, much better to be the dog of a reader.

Especially on a summer’s day.

Chapter Five

.....Meanwhile...

 through a small round door under the third lilac bush from the sea path, 

far down below the floor of Leila’s studio,

in a house whose rooms are always chilly, always cozy, 

a badger sits reading his own special book by the light of a flickering candle.

Edward and I are happy to report that a brand-new shipment of 

From the House of Edward is almost ready. 

 For those who’ve been waiting a couple of weeks, watch your mailbox...
 it will be there soon.

  And for those who’ve yet to get one of your own, now’s the time!
Find it HERE

The wonderful illustration of the badger is by artist, Kevin Nichols.
You'll read more about him soon!

***********

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What We See... A List For Summer

What We See....

 a List for Summer

The wonderful British writer, John Lubbock, once said that “what we see depends mainly on what we look for”.  A brilliant observation and one that, if taken to heart, can ease someone's journey through life by illuminating all that is splendid and good along the way.  It is indeed my experience that if I set out each morning expecting to discover beauty, navigating each bend in the road with my eye out for the delightful, well, that’s generally what I find.  Indeed, these expected surprises are, as is the title of one of Mr. Lubbock’s more well-known works, The Pleasures of Life.  

This particular summer is proving to be a glowing example of this approach to life for it seems that everywhere I turn lately, I am finding serendipitous joy.  The flowers in my garden have never been so lush, the vegetables are growing as though bewitched.  There are bluebirds that dip and dive in front of me as I stroll through each morning making me feel a bit like Snow White.  The normally hot humid summer of the South has ceded control to a much more temperate cousin who is blessing us with breezy, gardenia-scented afternoons perfect for open windows and the occasional nap.  The sunlight slides through the windows like honey.  Even Edward, generally a melancholy critic of summer weather, is blissful. 

So, it is time for a list of summer things.  

Seven small delights that have captured my imagination lately.

  I hope you enjoy them.

As usual, there are links included for your further exploration.  Have fun!

1. Wings

Artist Susan Hannon creates the feathers for these magnificent wing sculptures

 from the pages of old abandoned Bibles.

  They take my breath away.

See more HERE

2. Tents

Confession:  I’m not much of a camper.

  Maybe I’ve never given it a chance,

 or maybe I’m too addicted to hot baths and too leery of bugs.

  But this tent could, just possibly, change my mind. 

Isn’t it amazing?

Find it HERE 

 3. Pillows

Even though these days, I only lazily wade through the shallow end of design, I do still take on a client or two and therefore I occasionally come across incredibly beautiful things - things I cannot resist, things I like to share.  Recently I discovered a new source for perfectly exquisite pillows made from antique rugs and, no, I could not pass them up.  I even picked up a few to make available in my etsy shoppe.  They have wonderful colour, delicious texture and are blessed with a reasonable price point as well.  

Come take a look.

There are only a few available now, but maybe more later.
(Update:... Only two left!)

Find them HERE

4. Goats

In spite of the hurly burly, speedster pace of modern life... or perhaps because of it... a delightful change seems to be taking place.  More and more people, in unexpected corners of unexpected cities, are returning to a handmade life.  More families are cooking and baking.  More people are growing their own food.  Knitting classes are overflowing.  I have several friends who keep their own chickens and, as a grateful recipient of just laid eggs, I can tell you this is a very good thing indeed.

  One of my more irresistible neighbours has just added to her urban farm by four.

  Four miniature goats by the name of Oscar, Otis, Elmer and Gwynnie Dulcinea.

  They arrived looking eerily similar to tiny, hooved puppies and have now grown into the cutest creatures one could possibly imagine and will soon be helping out in the cheese and soap department of the farm.  

I spent an afternoon with them recently and fell utterly in love.  

Sadly, after a talk with Edward and Apple,

 my idea of adding them to our own household was firmly voted down.

But you can read more about getting some of your own HERE.

5. Bracelets

The Victoria and Albert Museum is a must see whenever one is in London. 

 This in inarguable.  

But I’ll let you in on a little secret.  The gift shop there is to die for.

  The jewelry alone is swoon-worthy. 

 This last trip saw me leaving with three new bracelets in my bag. 

 I have a difficult time resisting bracelets.  I love them. 

I love the way they feel on my arm, the noise they make when they bump into each other.  

This is the one I’ve been wearing most this summer.
I found it at Anthropologie and

 no one can believe how inexpensive it was, so I decided to show you all and prove it.  

I’ve got the white one, but the blue or the yellow look equally tempting.

Find it HERE.

6. Paper Criminals

Patty Grazini creates whimsical, achingly imaginative, art out of paper.

Her creativity is inspiring.

The lady shown here is one in her series of New York Criminals,

 featured in the New York Times between the years of 1885 and 1915.  

This happens to be Mary Largo, Queen of the Beggar’s Society who was arrested for graft.  

Fascinating.

I thought you might enjoy this video of Ms. Grazini speaking about her marvelous work...HERE

7. Photographs

Large and unwieldy, it had always sat in my parent’s closet.  

We’d occasionally take it down and look through it, but hadn’t done so in years.

The big box of family photographs was legend in our family and naturally, it was the first thing 

I removed from the house in preparation for the estate sale last month.  

When I finally saw my way clear to go through it all, what treasures I found.

  Ancient pictures, wrinkled and creased, that we managed to restore to original luster

(like the one of my Father and me above).

Old negatives, never before seen, that, through the magic of a scanner, were released from their spell of silence. 

 Unable to once again imprison these back in the box where they’d lain for so many decades, I decided to create a new gallery of sorts in the hallway leading to our bedroom.  We set about finding equally memorable photos from The Songwriter’s family and framed them all.  It’s such a treat for us both to see these lovely faces smiling up at us each day, reminding us, sweetly, of the arc of life.

Surely there are some old photos you’d like to frame for your own gallery.

I encourage you to do so!

That’s all for now, but stay tuned for a Summer Reading List

as well as The Best of London.

So much fun!

The Lure of British Books

The Lure of British Books

Barring one rather over-enthusiastic pat down at Boston’s Logan airport last year, I have never had an incident going through the security line before flying.  I take off my shoes.  I open my laptop. I make certain not to wear any jewelry that will anger the bells and whistles and, usually, everything is fine.  But leaving Heathrow a couple of weeks ago proved a mark on my previously unblemished record.  The problem?  Books.  My suitcase, which I always carry on to avoid those irritating lines at baggage claim, was incredibly heavier than it looked.  The security fellow lifted it up and his expression changed from helpful to suspicious in a twinkling.

“It’s books”, I admitted, feeling unpleasantly conspicuous.
“Really?  A walking book mobile, are you?”, he replied, narrowing his eyes.

  In an instant I was being moved to one side where I watched in abject horror as he opened my case and began the hideous process of going through every item inside. Incredibly relieved that I’d patronized bookshops instead of Agent Provoctateur, I stared as he lifted the contents of my case up in the air, one by one, till he reached the double layer of hardbacks, neatly arranged beneath the pajamas and pashminas.  He looked up in amazement and I swallowed a strong urge to say I told you so.  He opened each book, rifling the pages.  People were staring.  The Songwriter was shaking his head.  An elderly lady standing next to me exploded in outrage on my behalf shouting, “Look at her!  Do you honestly think this is necessary?  Fascism!  That’s what this is!  Fascism!”  I smiled weakly and quickly sidled away from her so as not to make matters worse for myself by association.

But really, what is one to do?  Is there any city in the whole of the world with more enticing bookshops than London?  John Sandoe’s.  Hatchard’s.  Daunt.  Persephone.  Not to mention the literary treasures to be found in every single National Trust Gift Shop and art gallery in the land.  For anyone to expect a reader to leave Heathrow airport after ten days in the UK without books in their suitcase is ludicrous.  Of course, I did have fifteen in there.  But, well... you know.

Here are some of my recent finds.
 Resist them if you can.
(Just click on the photos to see more.)

Plus, from the wonderland known as Persephone Books,
I picked up this one and couldn't say no to this one.
Or this one.
Or this one.  Or this.
Sigh.

Caught in the act in Kent.

Keep Always

Keep Always

It wasn’t until about ten years ago that I realized my parents weren’t going to be around forever.  Oh, I’d been aware of that fact intellectually, of course.  But emotionally?  Practically?  I don’t think I’d given it a great deal of thought on those levels.  But around ten years ago it seemed doctor’s appointments were becoming more of a regular activity for them both and it slowly dawned on me that there was going to be a day, not long off, when I would be presented with decisions and responsibilities unique to the only child, not the least of which was what to do with their large, furniture filled home.

Daddy went first, five years ago. Afterwards, it was clear Mother had no intention of changing anything, or moving anywhere, so when we buried her on New Year’s Eve of last year, the house was as full as ever.  After the funeral, I locked the door with the intention of letting those decisions wait for a good long while.  It had been a difficult year and I thought the luxury of procrastination was one I both needed and deserved.  But each time I visited to check on the house, it seemed to look sadder than the time before and I soon realized this was not something I could put off for too long.  Knowing we were heading on holiday to the UK in May, I wanted to get this emotional chore behind me before we left as I didn’t want it looming up on the horizon as the plane touched down on my return.  The estate sale experts I enlisted told me to just to take the things I wanted and leave the rest to them so the week before leaving town, I tackled the task of gathering together the items that meant the most to me from our family’s house.  

My parents built this house, we are the only ones to ever live here.  My Mother hated change, of any kind, and when they decided to leave our home in the city and build this one further out, she was anxious about it.  So my Father took to sharing his excitement over the building process with me.  Each afternoon I’d wait till he got home from work and together we’d drive the seven or so miles to the site of the new house to check on the progress made that day.  Every nook and cranny was inspected and I could sense Daddy’s pride and joy in watching his new home take shape.  He’d never been much of a gardener before, but soon after we moved in, he became obsessed.  He found he had a knack for garden design and would frequently disappear into the woods behind out house, only to return a few hours later carrying a large poplar or sweet gum seeding over his shoulder.  He’d find the perfect place and proceed to plant these baby trees.  They are towering specimens now.  I would take them with me if I could.

I didn’t go trick or treating in this neighbourhood.  By the time I moved here, I no longer believed in the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny.  This was not the house of my childhood.  No, this was the house of my teenage years.  Dates picked me up at this front door. I left for my wedding from here.  The memories are sweet ones and they came flooding back as I walked from room to room trying to decide which items to take and which to leave behind.  Opening one cabinet in the sitting room, I found all the cranberry scented candles my Mother used at Christmas and suddenly I could clearly see her baking fruit cookies on Christmas Eve.  I found my baby clothes.  A lock of my own hair.  Inside a box of old photographs was an envelope with the words, “Keep Always” written across the front in my Mother’s hand.  Inside were the love letters my Father wrote to her before I was born.  He’d made them rhyme.  They are treasures richer than veins of diamonds to me. 

In the end I kept the lamp I was always warned not to knock over every time I ran through the house.  I kept the fine china. I’ll set my Thanksgiving table with it from now on and see their faces sitting there.  I kept the mantle clock that chimed every fifteen minutes of my childhood.  It rings outs from my library now.  In a favourite photograph of my Father and me we are visiting my great aunt at her home in the country and Daddy is sitting in her goose neck rocking chair, with one arm around me, smiling.  The photograph has sat in my bedroom for years.  And now the chair does as well; a continuance, a comfort.

In performing this task I only recently realized would one day be mine,  I discovered it is impossible to predict which items from lives gone will be imbued with memory for those who are left behind.  My Mother’s rolling pin.  My Father’s hats.  Two tiny bells that hung on the Christmas tree.  These are more valuable than paintings or silver.  These are the precious and the prized.  These are the talismans held close as I handed the key over and walked away.

The Tour

On Tour

The Songwriter, brave soul that he is, takes on the duty of driving our rental car whenever we are in Britain.  This is no small feat, I assure you, for as we all know, the British insist upon driving on the left side of the road.  This means that in addition to driving on what we Americans consider to be the “wrong” side of the road, one must adjust to the driver’s side of the car being switched to the passenger side.  This also means the driver is shifting gears with his left hand. To us, any of these situations is disconcerting at best, all of them together can occasionally be a nightmare.  Through the years we have worked out a system of sharing this uncomfortable experience.  While The  Songwriter grips the steering wheel, unblinking, and negotiates the narrow lanes and roundabouts, it is my job to scream “CURB”, or “HEDGE” or “WALL” whenever he occasionally veers too close to the side of the road.  I have also perfected a siren call of “LOOK RIGHT!” upon the approach of any intersection.  I perform these duties very well, without fail, all the while offering encouraging and complimentary comments about his efforts.  (I also frequently dig my fingernails into my seat cushion but have no illusions that this activity either adds or detracts from our motoring successes.)  Happily our system seems to work, for we have had no incidents in our travels, although a morning rush hour foray into the center of Bath once bore a strong resemblance to two unhinged individuals in a clown car, that city being much larger and entirely more populated than we’d counted on.

We endure these little adventures in mobility not because we have a low threshold for excitement, but because we are ill-suited for group activity, a fact that was lit in neon for us on this most recent holiday.   Having been in Sussex and Kent for awhile, we traveled up to London for the latter part of our trip.  Now of course, Mr. Johnson was correct when he uttered those famous words, “When one is tired of London, one is tired of life”.  There is so much to do and see in the old city that one never needs to consider any sort of “side trip”.  But we were seduced by the words, “Lunch in the Cotswolds” and as our adventurous spirits are not capacious enough to encompass the possibility of driving in London proper, we decided to do something we’d never done before.  We decided to take a tour.

So, freshly scrubbed and sharply dressed, we boarded a large tour bus with a large group of other people.  Wedging ourselves into our bright blue velveteen seats, we immediately noticed our knees were now positioned roughly in the vicinity of our chests and a frisson of worry ran up our spines.  Not wanting to point this uncomfortably obvious fact out to each other, The Songwriter made a weak joke about the Magical Mystery Tour while I did the same about Agatha Christie... “Wonder which one of them will commit the murder?”, I giggled feebly.  

It was about this moment that we noticed our tour guide climbing aboard.  A tall man, sporting a straw hat, he looked harmless enough.  Appearances can be deceiving, however, and despite an overwhelming lack of encouragement from his captive audience he began an incessant stream of verbiage consisting primarily of bad jokes, gripes and self-serving stories that increased in obnoxiousness with every bend in the road.  We were not out of London before I decided it was going to be me who committed the upcoming murder, for I wanted to kill this man.  

Staring forward as though drugged, our fellow passengers sat stock still in utter silence as our guide droned on through hill and dale.  The villages we were scheduled to stop in were obviously welcoming of large tour buses which meant nearly every building was dedicated to the tourist trade and chockablock with souvenir shops of every shape and size.  We were allowed to disembark at these places only after being given the precise time we were expected to return along with a stern warning as to what would happen if we were late.  I am afraid it was shortly after the first stop that my rebellious spirit took hold.  As we were expected to follow our straw-hatted Moses through the town like a brood of newly hatched ducklings, I naturally positioned myself at the end of the line in an effort to better enable my escape.  One town saw me heading to the train station at a clip with The Songwriter fast on my heels.

“We can’t just get on a train!”

“Well, why not?  What are they going to do?  Arrest us?

“They’ll wait for us.  We’ll hold up the whole tour! 
 We can’t do that to those other poor people.”

Realizing he was right, knowing I’d been beaten, I limped back to the bus where I endured the praise of our leader for my prompt return.  As I swallowed an urge to laugh maniacally, I silently vowed a return visit to see the Cotswold region properly and slept the rest of the way back to London with my knees tucked up under my chin like a bat.  We both laugh now when we seen the photos of me taken on that day.  The look in my eye escalates from amusement to irritation, from irritation to mutinous animosity at an alarming rate.   

A wasted day?  Not in any sense.  Sometimes it is beneficial to be reminded of something one already knows.  While neither of us is in anyway shy, we both delight in each other’s company and crave the freedom that traveling alone offers. Tour buses are not for us.  We know that now.  Sure, driving presents a few unique challenges.  There are Highland cattle that sleep in the middle of the road on the Isle of Skye.  We frequently get stuck behind a flock of sheep, lazily strolling en masse down a one track road.  And of course, we get lost occasionally.  But that’s all part of the fun. And anyway, how lost can one get in England and Scotland?  One is on an island, after all.

Every Now and Then, the Bluebells Wait for You

Every Now and Then, the Bluebells Wait for You

Like most people of romantic bent, I fell headlong in love with the Merchant Ivory film interpretation of E. M. Forster’s wonderful novel, Howards End, the first time I saw it.  Every frame, whether verdant or urban, enchanted me. Vanessa Redgrave’s long white gown trailing through the evening dew in the opening scene.  The charming rooms of the Schlegel sisters' home in Wickham Place.  Poor Leonard Bast, influenced by George Meredith’s Richard Peverel, walking all night through a Spring carpet of bluebells stretched out on a forest floor, a forest that “drooped glimmeringly”.  As a child of the American South, my Springtime carpets have always been green.  The limes of new moss; the emeralds of clover.  Seeing a shady forest blanketed in blue was something straight out of fairy tale to my mind.  Could it be real? I could not empirically say.  

Though prevalent in an English spring, bluebells are early bloomers and as my plane followed the moon across the Atlantic in the middle of May, I had no hope of seeing them.  They would have already flamed and gone, remaining but one more of those memories of imagination not unlike Scrooge’s door knocker or the celestial pathway to Neverland, just a wonderful snippet that sits in one’s mind and often seems more tangible that fact.  

But my journey by plane, tube, train and car led me to a magical place.  Through a diamond shaped window in my charming bedroom, I could see an Elizabethan tower presiding over a legendary garden, a garden in which the footsteps of literary giants once pressed the grasses and climbed the tower to a room full of books and ideas.  The wind beat the windows as I slept that night, blowing any remnant of the commonplace away like the ashes of a cooled fire.  I awoke to the beckoning call of the garden, dressed quickly and headed out under a sky full of rolling clouds..

All morning long I wandered through rooms of green, along great swathes of yellow and lime.  I entered a walled garden of bridal gown white, emperor tulips nodding in the wind.  I was lost in daydream when, out of the corner of my eye, just beyond the garden wall, I spied a pathway.  Prone as I am to drift apart from the others, to duck under fences and wander away, naturally I followed it.  A grey farm dog ran past me, looking over his shoulder as he went as if to say, 
“This way.  Come this way.”  
The birds sang a lyrical welcome as I went.  Crossing meadows and rounding past ponds, I followed magpies over wooden bridges that lay like cupped hands cross rippling streams.  I strolled past the lambs of a new season and ducked under willows only recently dressed in ball gowns of green till, suddenly, tall trees closed in around me and everywhere, everywhere, I looked was blue.  It was just as I imagined, just as I dreamed.  Bluebells.  In every corner of the forest, waving in the wind a greeting of memory, imaginary and real, ancient and new.  I stood, transfixed, and laughed.

“It’s been a late Spring here”, my innkeeper told me later.  “We thought they’d never bloom.  It’s lucky for you that you came when you did.  Any earlier and I’m afraid you would’ve been disappointed”.

Sometimes the sights we dream of seeing are just outside our reach.  On the banks of a country river, we look round for Ratty and Mole, but find they’ve sailed round the bend just before we arrived.  If indeed Number 17 Cherry Tree Lane exists in a London borough, I have no confidence we’d find Mary Poppins minding the children inside if we knocked on the door, even if the wind was blowing in from the East.  But I’ve found it best not to give up hope, for every now and then the seasons and stories combine and conspire to surprise.  Every now and then, the bluebells wait for you.

I stayed here and it was wonderful!

Explore. Dream. Discover.

Explore.  Dream.  Discover.

In the upcoming days the curtains I pull back at dawn will reveal unfamiliar landscapes. 
 A tall tower standing in the middle of an ivory garden.  

A simple bedroom where the sheets are “stretched tight and the bed is narrow”  

and the lyrical language of its revered inhabitant 

still dips and swirls in the springtime light.

I shall wander through family house in the country

 in which an entire movement of art was born and nurtured.

I shall spend an evening with Peter and Alice, released now as they are from the pages of childhood.  I shall have breakfast with a Provencal princess, one who generously shares the essence of her French life with beauty and wit.  I shall wander London bookshops with a novice novelist.  

And I just might be offered a magic wand.  

This of course, I shall have to decline, for I already have one of my own.

I am off to pick up the stones on a new road,

 releasing new stories and hearing new songs.  

I shall return soon.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor .Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” 

Mark Twain

Through the Window

Through the Window

Except for one unfortunate and blessedly brief anomaly when I was about eight, I have had long hair all of my life.  Therefore I know the value of the six week trim and follow that schedule religiously.  Upon making my latest appointment, I put the phone back in my pocket and could almost swear I heard my Mother’s voice once again. 

“You’ve made an appointment at the salon”.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to get it styled this time?”

Sigh.

“Styled” was my Mother’s little euphemism - slightly snarky, but ever hopeful - for a haircut that would, finally, yank me from the brink of contumaciousness and plop me solidly down in the clover of risk-free respectability.  Really, who could blame her? When she was young hardly any woman over forty had long hair and, if they did, it usually came with some sort of iconoclastic t’shirt and often without the appropriate ladylike undergarments.  It is laughable to think of any of my schoolteachers with long and frequently windblown hair such as mine is now.  But then, I dare say few of us resemble our schoolteachers these days.

Don’t get me wrong, I know full well that I’m getting, ahem... older.  Everyone is, after all.  But I’m grateful that the oft unspoken, but still ironclad, rules that governed my Mother and her friends have for the most part been jettisoned along with eight-track tapes and girdles.  My sartorial choices have infinitely more to do with personal taste than any sort of age restriction and I never turn down any experience just because I think I’m too old.  Case in point... last week, upon returning to town from our little sabbatical whilst the floors of the cottage were being redone, I found myself barred from the bedroom because the hallway floors were not quite dry.  What to do?  The Songwriter took Edward and Apple out into the back garden to bunk down in the studio but somehow that just didn’t seem all that comfortable to me.  I was tired, I’d been driving for most of the day with two large dogs in the car and I knew my soft, lovely bed was just out of reach.  So, just as I would have done when I was sixteen... I carefully crawled inside the newly budded rose bush, jimmied a window and climbed up, up and in.  Never gave it a second thought.  Never once considered such an activity might be ill-advised till I told several people the next day who, upon hearing of my adventure, laughed just a little too loudly for my liking.  Let them laugh.  I slept soundly in my own bed and climbed out the window next morning fresh as a daisy.

(Of course the really funny aspect of this story happened following a midnight phone call from The Songwriter who informed me that Edward had no intention of sleeping away from me.  So... you guessed it, in a few moments I spied at my window the happy, grinning face of a big white furry dog, framed by pink rose buds, as Edward was hoisted up and into the very same portal I’d tumbled through earlier.  Edward, of course, acted as though this were an everyday occurrence, calmly hopping up on the bed, placing his head across my ankles as usual and falling immediately asleep.  Dogs keep us young as well, you know.) 

In speaking about her new book, Living the Good Long Life, the uber-active lifestyle doyenne, Martha Stewart, tells us that seventy is the new fifty.  Of course, she’s seventy-one, so she would say that, I suppose.  But I do appreciate her attitude and have no doubt she has some wisdom to impart in this latest publishing venture.  For myself, I never really thing about age.  When I do, it’s rather stunning to realize that it’s happening in spite of my long hair and climbing capabilities.  Ah well, I still left the salon yesterday without resorting to any sort of “style” and from her heavenly portal, I have no doubt my Mother was still shaking her head in frustration.

Maybe when I get to be Martha’s age, I’ll just wear it up.

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