Thought for the day - September 2, 2000

Subject: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: katlaughing
Date: 01 Sep 00 - 11:21 PM

I am ten or eleven years old. My mom has a top lefthand drawer in her low bureau, with the big mirror, in which she keeps her jewelry, in its original boxes, her hankies, ironed and folded neatly, and a small box, about 6 inches by 9 inches which is decorated with pastel scenes of chic women in designer outfits of the early sixties, very modern, tight skirts, short jackets, adn pillbox Jackie Kennedy hats.

Mom lets me play with the things in that drawer. I carefuly take each box out and put it on top of the bureau, or carry them over to her bed. There I lay them all out, taking out each set of necklaces and earrings, trying them on; looking in the mirror. Then, having saved the best for last, I take out the chic Parisian box.

My uncle, one of mom's older brothers, was the second top person in the U. S. Weather Bureau. He served in a lot of diplomatic assignments and one of those happened to be in Paris, France. When he returned, he brought her back a little memento, as he always did.

I open the box Uncle Art brought back and I look at each shimmering tiny bottle with its expensive liquid....Parisian perfume. I can barely make out the names, as I don't know much French. I take only the top cap off, not the inner stopper, as that would be too extravagant. I waft each one under my nose, never using any without asking mom first. This was the special stuff, the reserve stuff, only for special occasions. After testing each one, I carefully replaced each bottle in its tiny cut out niche, nestled so carefully that not one had broken on my uncle's flight home.

A year and a half ago, mom passed away. We children had a weekend, really one day, to go through her things, together, and keep what we wanted. There nestled amongst her other things, was that box, with its now over 35 year old perfumes, still smelling wonderful, barely used. The hinges of the box a little worn, a couple of the bottle tops cracked, but still carefully treasured as a symbol of her big brother's love and as one of the finer things in life, of which she didn't get a lot.

Now I have that little box and it always reminds me of the gentility and culture of mom and the love she had for us all.

(With apologies to the perfume thread. I wanted to save this for my TFTD and I know it is contrary to what I posted there, except that I did say some of the mroe expensive perfumes are tolerable to my sensitive system.**BG**)

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: Mbo
Date: 01 Sep 00 - 11:24 PM

Mmm nice! BTW Happy B-day to AndyG & Guy Wolff!

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: TheMuse
Date: 02 Sep 00 - 09:15 AM

kat,

Thank you so much for bringing back a memory to me. I too used to take great joy in some of my mothers things. I was probably 6 or 7 and I would go through her jewelry box and dream of the days when I would be able to "dress up" and wear necklaces and ear rings. But her most prized possesion to me was her many hankies. So many different colors and decorations. Some plain, some edged in lace, some embroidered. I would unfold them and spread them all out on her bed, and then fold them all back up again as neatly as I could. Years ago she gave me what she had left becuase she had long since gone to the modern route of the kleenex. She passed away in 1996 but I still have these hankies safely stored in my dresser drawer and occasionally take them out just to remember.

TheMuse

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: Jeri
Date: 02 Sep 00 - 09:43 AM

Kat, it's odd - I have the same memory as you. I too would go through the "treasures" my mother had accumulated, sometimes with her. She would tell stories about each piece of jewelery. "This one was my mothers," she would say, or "I wore those earrings on the day I met your father." Each piece had a memory of a person or event attached. Some of her jewelery was valuable because of its age, but most because of the memories it brough back. I don't know what happened to the little box of Parisian perfumes, but I remember it.

I wish I could remember how the puzzle ring goes back together. She showed me several times, but I'd always forget.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Sep 00 - 10:08 AM

You know, as I was writing that last night, I wondered if any of you had the same memories. You've both described even more of what I remember, too. Thank you so much.

Muse, I started collecting the hankies as a young girl and still have one or two of my grandmas and several from my mom. I loved it when mom allowed me to iron them for her, too. Plus, I got to iron my dad's bandanas!

Jeri, I know what you mean about the jewelry. I knew where each piece had come from, some heirlooms, some newer, but still special. I still have one earring of a set that I always treasured: it is a miniature cage with only four vertical "bars", actually links of metal, with a very tiny parrot swinging on a perch inside. I lost the other long ago, but those were always my very favourite.

Thanks, you two.

kat

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: catspaw49
Date: 02 Sep 00 - 10:23 AM

Ya know, this one's almost too painful for me, believe it or not...........Even little boys liked that too. It was somehow magical. For me, all of it is gone now....I had kept some things for many years before a warehouse fire destroyed them. But nothing has destoyed my memory....at least not yet.

Very nice guys..........

Spaw

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: Giac
Date: 02 Sep 00 - 10:36 AM

Wow, kat!

Me too, including ironing the hankies. I remember how the fabric smelled as it got hot. Mama would say, "Turn that iron down, don't scorch them."

In Mama's special drawer was a packet of letters, which I was not allowed to touch. They were bound with a faded pink satin ribbon. My dad died when I was not quite 8, and growing up, I always assumed they were from him. After Mama died, I looked at the letters, feeling guilty, but too curious. The letters were from a long-ago suitor whose lavish handwriting spilled across page after page, declaring his undying passion. I was shocked and amused at the same time. I burned the letters. They still weren't any of my business. As the smoke drifted away, with it I sent an apology to Mama for prying into her affairs.

Thanks for the brief trip home,

Giac

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Sep 00 - 11:13 AM

beautiful thought, kat. Obviously something most girls connect with -- considering their mother's jewellery. My sister would play with the costume stuff for hours from the special blue box, with the mirror in the lid. Not having had an active father, I didn't have his tools or fishing gear or whatever to wander through. But I was certainly awestruck by his closet full of all those adult clothes and shoes and ties. A friend of mine, after his father died, said that the worst moment was when he had to go through his father's chest of drawers -- not because of anything in it, it was just the fact that he would never have dared touch his father's chest of drawers as a kid. I understood perfectly.

yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: TheMuse
Date: 02 Sep 00 - 11:27 AM

OH MY GOD!!! I used to iron her hankies too!

One of the pieces of jewelry I got when my mother died was a silver ring with a tourquise stone in it. She wore it constantly. It is clearly visible in one of the last good pictures I have of her. I never did ask her the significance of it, wish I had.

Great thread, kat, thanks again.

TheMuse

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: katlaughing
Date: 02 Sep 00 - 12:28 PM

I love it when the threads click like this! Tapped in and giving thanks to yew all!

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: SINSULL
Date: 02 Sep 00 - 12:54 PM

Kat,
I still have my mother's jewelry box. I was allowed to touch it only under supervision. She died suddenly. And her sister went in to her room with my Mom's body still on the bed. She took out the jewelry box and brought it to me. I was horrified. She had touched it without permission. I made her put it back. It is still my most vivid memory of that day. I was 26.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: JenEllen
Date: 02 Sep 00 - 02:19 PM

Thank you kat, luverly thought.

~Elle

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: Escamillo
Date: 03 Sep 00 - 04:51 AM

Thanks Kat for sharing those thoughts. I wish when I die, my sons keep my small possesions and look at them with the same respect and love.

Un abrazo - Andrés

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: katlaughing
Date: 03 Sep 00 - 10:58 AM

I am sure they will Andres. Thank you.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Sep 00 - 10:48 AM

A mother (and her 'special drawer') is the male's first introduction to the "feminine mystique."

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: Peg
Date: 06 Sep 00 - 10:51 AM

thank you for these thoughts. I have vivid memories of enjoying my mother's perfumes and jewelry box, gloves and rings and purses, all kept in drawers...I know she knew we liked to play in hers and my Dad's bedroom...once my younger brother and I were in there playing with some glow-in-the-dark crayons (their closet seemed to us the darkest place in the house to try them out in the daytime) and shut the door and could not get back out! We panicked and cried and she finally "rescued" us...

The bit about the old perfume bottles really got me; my mom had lots of those old Avon novelty bottles (worth a small fortune now as they are collectors' items) including a mermaid, etc. She also had some more expensive perfumes she "saved" for special occasions...over the years some of these started to smell pretty awful, although some still smelled the same. Nice to hear yours held out for a long time!

I guess that old story holds true: don't save things for a rainy day...use the good china, the good silver, for dinner once in a while...break out that bottle of vintage wine...wear those fragile beads...savor the perfumes...

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: Peter T.
Date: 06 Sep 00 - 11:11 AM

Hadn't thought of that, Peg. Strange that something as ephemeral as perfume would be hoarded away and last longer than the person. As you say, would it not be better to daub on the perfume, and drink all the Bordeaux in the basement? I suppose part of these things is that while some of the perfume is just there to be smelt occasionally and dreamt upon, surely part of it is really the hope that one day you would be able to put it on for something elegant. And the elegant occasions seldom if never come. They do not come, anyway, as often as one hopes. And they get fewer as you get older, it seems (and when the older generation goes, they may disappear forever). My parents are wrestling with going to a WWII reunion for what they expect will be the last time (they are both in their mid80's and very frail), and I know my mother wants to put on her finery just once more. I will remind her of this thread.
yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Sep 00 - 11:43 AM

I am sure it is partly that generational thing. This week, I have been going through the boxes and sacks of papers and photos my mother "hoarded". Literally hundreds of birthday cards from the 1960's, specific Mother's Days cards, newspaper clippings which she thought one of us might be interested in; all bound in separate bundles, very neatly tucked into plastic bags. She always meant to get them put into albums; they were "just too pretty to throw away." I know of others of her generation who hoard even more; they just never throw anything away, nor do they use it!

We've spoken before of the Depression era spawning this kind of saving up for a rainy day. I don't feel it passed on to me, and I know it didn't my children, but I wonder how the rest of you feel? Do you save up as your parents might have?

Peg, beautifully put about spreading your "vital" and beauty, talents, etc. Much more lasting and important than the monetary stuff, although that, too, at least on this plane, has to be dealt with. Good wishes to you on that, too.

Peter, I hope your mom will adorn herself with all her finery and let's you take pictures. Your parents sound like such wonderful folks. Thanks for sharing them.

kat

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: sian, west wales
Date: 06 Sep 00 - 11:44 AM

I have four god-children - all in one family - and, when the first one was born, I had an idea which, I hope, will prove to be a version of Mother's Jewellery Box.

For Elinor's first Christmas, I bought a wicker basket (with a lid) and lined it with quilted Christmas-print fabric. And I gave her one Christmas ornament to go in the basket.

The next year, I gave her a *regular* present ... plus a Christmas ornament.

The next year, she had a baby sister ... who was then given a different shaped, lined Christmas basket, plus ornament. Elinor also had one new ornament.

And so on the next year, when sister number 3 joined the ranks.

Two years later, there was a ... gasp! ... brother! Conundrum: what does one do for *boys*? Well, I decided to do the same, and got him a wicker fisherman's basket (lined, ornament, etc.) and I reckon that, when he leaves home and has his own first Christmas tree, some girl is gonna think that he is seriously adorable...

Anyway, I think the kids all really look forward to this side of their Christmas each year and I'm hoping that when they get old 'n' grey ... like their god-mother is now ... all the little ornaments will remind them of all the childhood Christmases... and maybe a bit of me too.

sian

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - September 2, 2000
From: katlaughing
Date: 06 Sep 00 - 02:17 PM

Oh, that is a treasure!!! What a wonderful idea! since my grandsons are only 2, I can still do that and not have to catch up too many soltices/christmases! Thank you, Sian.

One of the things I've done for children of our fmaily who live far away, is put together their own photo album of family members and critters. I did that for my nephew when he was only a baby and we moved away. I've heard that over the years he really enjoyed it. I did it for my grandsons' 2nd b-day and now when we get on the phone, they run for their albums and point to "Gramma Kitkat" and "Awn (Aunt) Roo's" pictures.

kat