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Happy Birthday Joel

Today is my son’s birthday. It hurts my heart to say that. It’s so easy to picture him here, to see him grinning and laughing. If he were here he would play with the dog, and the cat. He loved animals and was very good with them. He was great with computers and became a computer programmer. He wrote code. And he liked that. He loved Queen and sometimes I play many of their albums. Sometimes I can’t bear to listen to any. Bohemian Rhapsody can tear my heart out. Sometimes I have to listen to it so I can know something—I’m not sure what. But something pounded into me makes sense because you travel somewhere else with grief. He was beautiful.

“It’s funny the day you lose someone isn’t the worst. At least you’ve got something to do. It’s all the days they stay dead.” —Steven Moffat

You just want to take everything back. You want another chance so you can do things right. And you say over and over again: I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. You want him to know that, you want him to know, so bad. That you are sorry.

I used to get drunk and cry and drink and cry and drink and write and cry. I didn’t care about any life here, in this world. I wanted to die. That I didn’t was a surprise.

Squeek was his cat. He had gotten her just before he died. He knew he would die, he just didn’t know when, or that it would be that soon. It took a very long time until suddenly it was done.

Joel

JoelasBaby

Joel as Baby

 

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A Non-Gargoyle Moment

It seems as if everyone is posting at least one gargoyle, oftentimes many. The gargoyles of Notre Dame of course. They are interesting and spectacular in what they represent, but usually they are the same as someone else has just posted, so I thought I’d find something different. And I did, the guy displayed below. I believe him to be just darling and a worthy comment for us. He will now look over us.

Cinou Delcuvellerie Follow · 4 November · David Burnham Smith-Great Britain -

David Burnham Smith-Great Britain

By the way, there were some posts about some people being taken aback by the forms of the gargoyles, apparently not having seen them before. As I understand it, they are to reflect back to evil, (Evil vs. Evil) and drive it away. If there were sweet loving representations on the structure, they would drive goodness away. This is the same principle as the mirrors you will find on some Chinese structures. The mirrors send back to you that which you are.

I don’t think our guy above will drive anything anywhere. I believe he’s just watching with a very friendly and loving spirit.

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tragic

Sometimes there’s nothing to say.

Sometimes there’s nothing to say.

Sometimes there’s nothing to say.

ThinkMinsaThe Gargoyle of Notre Dame overlooking Paris, 1910.smithsonianGettyImages

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Mum’s Hatbox

When I was a wee child I used to play with my mother’s hatbox, kept in the only storage closet we had, on the second-floor landing of our new home. She said it was something that belonged in every woman and girl’s luggage, something you did not travel without. It was a wonderful and beautiful piece of luggage, black with gold snap hinges for closure. Inside there was room for a few select hats, and small elastic-topped silk pockets for hatpins. It was round, and the cloth that covered it felt like a rippled velvet. Inside were three hats that she had kept through the years.

My favorite was a small black top-hat sort of thing, with a magnificent veil. The veil was black to match the hat, but there were rhinestone diamond-like jewels in place here and there on the netting. The veil itself was able to be lowered in stages, to whichever length was preferred. This was done by hooking the netting on miniature, tiny butterfly-jeweled pegs on either side of the hat. The hat was magical to me. To put it on was to be transformed, to be flown away to a different time, the capture of something ephemeral.

My mother had left me with instructions to be carried out upon her death. The hatbox was to be given to a niece who was in the garment trade, Chanel to be specific. Of course it suited her and was well met to her profession. I gave the hatbox with the only hat left inside, the little black one with a veil, to my brother to give to her.

Still, all these many years later, I long to see that hat, to put it on and pull down the veil, to be thrown into that space that is the metaphysical, transcendent. And to run my hands across that hatbox that every young lady would have among her luggage.

The hatbox that my sister-in-law threw away.

 

 

 

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Vintage Fashions & History

vintageSomething

Posted by Vintage Fashions

L.E. Hansen           My mother had dresses like this, shown in black and white photos. She would say that I couldn’t imagine what the colors were like —not at all like those we have today. She said they were just “off” of a sort, the most lovely shades of green/not green, peach/pink and cream/not cream, and most of them had the lace (tatting?) across the top/bodice. I so wish I could have seen them in the real.
          She also said the times (the 20s era) did not last as long as they were portrayed, nor were they as they seemed to be. They were not that pretty and sweet. There was a lot of dirt, and dirty roads, and rambling old vehicles that you could run after (should you need to) and catch up for the ride.
         She told a rather sad story of someone who ran behind their vehicle after being wounded in a raid where they were making bathtub gin. He had been shot and they had to take off or they would all be captured. He ran after them, lame from the shooting and could not catch up. They learned afterword that he had died in custody. They didn’t know if it happened at the hospital or as a result of the police capture. Things were not as fun as they were portrayed, as is obvious from this story.
          About that bathtub gin: that was not as depicted. It was not gin at all, but stuff imported from Canada that they added other liquids to: rubbing alcohol, homemade “hooch,” sometimes pure moonshine. Anything that was in liquid form and didn’t walk was added to the mix. They didn’t call it bathtub gin, but hooch. Sometimes it was actually mixed up in a bathtub, but usually not, rather in a wash tub, barrel, or whatever was handy. And people did die from it, so it was risky when you went to a party. That didn’t seem to deter anyone though. And the dresses and 20s apparel were only displayed in the towns where there were dances, not in the back country where most of the parties and drinking occurred.
        It seems the import of this vignette is yes, the dresses were worn, but they are not the history of the times, something I was not aware of knowing until writing this piece. The history goes much further, and deeper. Still, I would love to wear the gowns and indeed I would, fashion or not. Bathtub gin or hooch, I’d probably drink that too.