We pull out of the driveway in his Chevy van, Led Zeppelin pounding through the speakers in the back, his floppy denim hat tossed onto the orange shag, my mother fuming on the front porch, her face a fist.
Why can’t she see he isn’t what she thinks he is? Why doesn’t she understand that just because he appears to be a bearded drop-out doesn’t mean that he is?
I am no longer under her roof, and college life affords me freedoms she cannot deny.
She should open her eyes and accept the reality that the world is changing, that I am changing, that she ought to be changing, and her refusal to shift her views hurts her more than it does me.
*
Their loopy, neon-colored, cartoon-like petals are a pleasure to those who would wish us all a more playful, peaceful planet. And they’re everywhere: on bumpers, on windshields, on blue loose-leaf binders.
The stickers are scattered across bedroom doors, on bulletin boards, on plaid luggage. They pull me in. They perk me up. They promise everything I am not quite old enough to enjoy.
Flower power. Beaded curtains. Owning myself.
*
My mother places each stem just so, not once but twice. This, after giving up on the dark green florist’s foam she begins with. She tells me the class in Japanese arranging is going well.
This is artful. This is womanly. This is important. It also seems like a throwback, even for her, being more independent than she lets on, and less wed to conventional domestic routine than one might believe.
What I like most: The way she snips daisies growing wild in the backyard, where she once seeded with abandon. Then she pops them into a pitcher. No muss, no fuss.
My grandmother’s style is something else. She is efficient in her cutting and gathering, but quietly content as she pokes through the rock garden and the back beds. Her bouquets are varied and quickly accomplished — grand or simple.
Always true to her natural elegance, in certain moods she prefers a few pink peonies in a small crystal vase.
*
The shift my mother stitches for herself and the shift she stitches for me are both constructed of a Butterick pattern. She chooses kettle cloth in bright colors with tiny blooms and leaves, or geometrics. All the clothing she makes is executed deftly on her grandmother’s Singer. To clarify, that’s the machine my great-grandmother used, one foot and two hands in a determined dance to fashion, well, fashion.
I am amazed that the contraption functions for at least 80 years. Today, it gathers dust in my attic.
*
Nancy Sinatra shimmies in her boots and I imagine what that would be like. Couldn’t I save up for a pair? My mother tells me I’m too young, I’ve hemmed the shift too short, and where on earth is my sense of propriety.
*
Fresh flowers are a must: Even in hard times, I find a way now and then. In prosperous times, I choose tulips, lilies, baby’s breath.
*
I despise those frigid, spare Japanese arrangements. Beautiful, they are. But so constrained. No wonder their petals weep.
*
For my wedding day, my mother insists I carry a bouquet of mixed flowers that is excessively large, excessively long, and surprisingly heavy. I can’t imagine why; it doesn’t suit me. But she likes it and I’m feeling magnanimous.
20 years later I find my grandmother’s bridal photograph in which she holds a bouquet with long satiny ribbons, an abundance of mixed blooms, and it is far too much for her diminutive stature.
Yes, it is common in her day; I look for other brides from the 1920s and they too wear Juliet caps, crazy long veils, and are posed with oversize bouquets.
Did my mother unconsciously “style” me to resemble my grandmother, whom we both loved deeply? She had passed away the year before.
*
Florals are not my thing: no floral wallpapers, no floral dresses, no floral linens. I possess one gauzy black-on-black silk scarf with a floral motif that I adore.
*
Nancy sings and I want to walk. Maybe into a field of poppies. Maybe into the sunset with a bearded boy. Maybe into my grandmother’s yellow kitchen to visit over coffee.
On the sill by the sink are violets, some of which are pink.
Stop by this month’s By Invitation Only. It’s all about floral fashion, frolic, and fun.
Led Zeppelin image per license CC 3.0, Attribution here.
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BUTTERICK!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! YOU take me BACK……..
Love how you captured your youth and your MOM and GRANDMERE in this article. My mom too had that SINGER SEWING MACHINE! STILL DOES……..
I can recall having the GO-GO BOOTS in white plastic!!!!
I was a bit young and MISSED the HIPPY CRAZE although we lived very close to the CENTER Of it ALL. BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA.
GORGEOUS POST………. GORGEOUS YOU!
XO
Yes, Butterick! (Smiling at the memory.) You had the white go-go boots?!? I’m so jealous! (I wanted those boots… No flowers on those boots…) 🙂
I think that you’ve covered all of our youth here …. just brilliant. You always do a wonderful post for our By Invitation subject. It was just like reading my life !!
Florals in fashion aren’t for me either ……. it’s funny but nearly everyone has said the same.
But, flowers in my home and in a fragrance, I LOVE.
…… and, I married that bearded boy and, after 40 years, he’s still got the beard !! XXXX
You married your bearded boy! That’s lovely, Jacqueline. 🙂
Fabulous piece D.A…
I loved that your wedding bouquet made you think of your grandmother (and mother) and that photo, so wonderful.
I am with you on the florals… very rare for me unless it’s the vintage dress kind or the real thing in a vase kind. I love them on everybody else but on me… I feel frumpy…
I of course will also be humming, “these boots are made for walking” for the rest of the evening… Go, Go, here I come… 🙂
xv
Ciao, anche io notavo che tutte hanno scritto: no, i fiori, o meglio, gli abiti floreali non sono per me! Ma allora per chi producono tutti questi abiti floreali ogni anno gli stilisti?
Il tuo post è molto bello, a tratti poetico, come ogni storia che parla di vita vera…
Baci da Roma
Yes… è vero! Wearing florals? Not necessarily what most adult women care to do. But living with them… Yes, wonderful.
What a softly beautiful & evocative post you’ve given us today, Wolfie. This is such a great story. And, I love your grandmother’s bouquet too. So many wonderful memories, my dear. You make me think of mine as well. And, WHO is the bearded one?
I just love seeing the image of your grandmother and her bouquet. Like you, we are not big on flowers on fabrics for interiors or clothing, but love nothing better than fresh flowers in our homes – so happy to be a part of “by invitation only”!
Oh this is clever,,,,clever. All the elements of flowers from the wild to the delicate – used as a metaphor for your family/ people in general really. Fabulous!
So glad you enjoyed, glamour drops! 🙂
Love the almost stream of consciousness in your thoughts for this post. Each scene is so vividly described. I, too, love the “grandmother’s bouquet” story….it explains a lot about your mother’s actions. As a child of the 60s, I relate to some of the more fun aspects of flower power and remember (with fondness) beads hanging across my bedroom doorway and floral fashions. My mom made almost all my clothes and, in turn, I learned how to sew…her response to my pleas for new clothes; you want more clothes? You make them. I was close friends with Butterick, McCalls and Simplicity patterns! And I believe I did have a pair of knee-high “go-go boots,” although I think it was more in the early 70s.
Oh yes, that giant, heavy bridal bouquet. I let my florist talk me into one too, when what I really wanted was just to carry a simple, tightly bound nosegay of roses à la Martha Stewart. (I later came to suspect she didn’t know how to make one.) I can’t put that one on my Mom. 🙂 I saw one of those flower power stickers on a car recently, what an anachronism. “A Dead Head sticker on a Cadillac…”
Awesome, awesome post. Fantastic risk-taking and arriving! No more to say than that but I am smiling as I type…