I pulled out the last of them with the point of a rock climbing pick.
The dirt was hard– their stems thick as rhubarb.
Then it rained for five days straight. Bastard Cabbages returned, invading my sweet garden, their leaves spreading wide like skirts of French court gowns.
But such extravagance left little room for daisies, snapdragons, and sweet peas started from seed.
I carved out a space around the tiny flowers. They, too, needed light and air.
She looked very much like the Queen Mother– not only in her coloring but in the way she dressed.
Heavy silk dresses, a string of pearls, a brooch pinned neatly below her neckline.
She was always prim and proper, her expression composed, though it softened into a lovely smile when we sang “Happy Birthday,” when she beat me at checkers, and especially when she offered a slice of lemon meringue or apple pie, still warm from the oven.
One day she wore a dress my mother had sewn for her from fabric covered in flowers the color of those in the flower power advertisements.
I looked at her in wonder.
“Wild flowers!” I declared.
She giggled then– a light, girlish sound I had never heard before.
For an instant, I caught sight of someone other than my dutiful Nana:
a young woman bright with life, still there beneath the silk dresses and pearls.
It was enchanting!
The following passage was in a note Nana once wrote to me:
Maiden, that read’st this simple rhyme, Enjoy thy youth, it will not stay; Enjoy the fragrance of thy prime, For O! it is not always May! by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow It is Not Always May
My maternal aunt was the eldest child of Depression parents.
She could make something beautiful out of very little.
Her father’s worn wool suits became braided rugs. Outgrown dresses and shirts became pieced quilts. Old sweaters unraveled for mittens and toques.
When she came to visit, she gathered up my daughters’ too-small clothes into her lap with delight, then sat at the kitchen table with her small scissors and seam ripper, taking each garment apart with the care of a surgeon.
When she was done, baby jars of buttons lined my shelves– sorted by color and size.
There were neat folds of fabric, bundles of lace, zippers saved for later.
Then came sweet afternoons spent sewing rag dolls beside her, with little dresses to match.
But when the remnant basket was empty, she would begin looking toward our closets, imagining what else might be cut down, remade.
Nothing was entirely safe.
That was usually when it was time for her to go home.
Now, years later, I find myself sitting by the sewing machine with a seam ripper in hand, saving buttons from old clothes–
the old baby jars still full on the shelf, still being used.
I never asked why. It was in her Dutch blood, her Calvinistic sense of simplicity– upright, unadorned.
On Mother’s Day there were always tulips: pale pink, set in her Delft vase, its blue-and-white surfaces catching the light, holding it quietly beneath the stems.
I tried, sometimes, to improve upon them– those lavish arrangements– variegated tulips, blue hydrangea, white roses, small bright globes of yellow– but she would only smile, as if to say: not this.
She wanted the tulips alone.
Now, after many years and other flowers– peonies, lilies, anemones, even the careful making of paper petals–
I pass a market stall and stop.
I bring home tulips, pale pink, and set them in her vase.
In the quiet of the room they open, and she is there.
It seemed a small thing then, learning by touch. – Joan Currie
Touch Typing by Joan Currie
I first learned to type on a machine with blank key caps, working through a manual until I knew exactly where every letter and number lay. That early fluency has served me well.
Your body, too, I first touched–memorized blindly, in the dark. Exploring each contour, as if it were a map I could follow by feel alone.
From your thick, curling hair down the slope of your forehead, to each familiar landmark– the aquiline nose, the square jaw, the wide sternum, the strong arms, the soft pads of your fingers, the smooth plain of your belly, the steely band along your outer thigh, the steady weight of your feet.
Over the years you have shown me how your body has changed, but I still see it as I first learned it– certain, enduring, and, to me, handsome still.
Satin & Sand 