LOVE THAT RED

 

I've been simply mesmerized in a vast collection of photos lately---mostly old ones, for another blog subject to come in its time, and in re-reading a friend's blog this morning, I was so caught  up in his story of a staid English uncle so enamoured of a lady that he caught a train from London to Scotland in 1928, simply to have luncheon with her.   If anything came of their romance, my friend never knew, but Uncle DID buy a house near her, and lived out his long life in the Highlands, leaving behind an enormous English country house and great rooms of furniture, which his family inherited.

The atmosphere of that Perhaps Love Affair was palpable in his words, for he writes exquisitely of beautiful things and people and times, that I could see the haze of smoke in their air, the scent of Winter-long furs and Toujours Moi and dustings of face powder, with a little rim of unblotted lipstick on the unfiltered cigarette paper left in the ashtray.

 

It so reminded me of some of the women in my own family, whose great presences were punctuated by scents and colours---good perfume and wafts of Coty powder, and one Aunt whose lipstick fascinated me so as a child and teen, I could scarcely look her in the eyes, for staring at the odd configuration of her bright lips:

 

(from my own blog---a memory from a far time, published several years ago):   Her red nail polish matched her lipstick, which was put on with the oddest little down-strokes side-by-side in the middle, higher than her own lipline, then by doing a big old theater-mask-mouth which stretched her bottom lip TIGHT while she did a corner-to-corner Revlon swoop (Love That Red). That lip totally covered, she bit them tight together, transferring a coat to the top lip. The original two little pointy places right in the middle stood brightly high like the tops of angel-wings, their line of demarcation flowing into the flat dryness of a sifty layer of Coty powder which clung to the downy hairs of her upper lip.

She was the Aunt of the Purse Peke, a perfect canine armful of happy spun-gold and exuberant licks, and the longtime owner of a monkey which reached his demise by the Winter-time perch around a floor lamp which slowly decimated his tail and thus he went.   At eight, I wrote him a little epitaph for his grave out in her garden.  "HIS TAIL WAS COLD.  HIS TALE IS TOLD."   

She was also loving Sister-in-Law to her husband's two "afflicted" brothers---the term of those days to convey an unfortunate condition, usually from birth.  They were both handicapped, and she was a true, helpful, uplifting Sister.  And her "other" sideline which got her and her husband talked about and into the calaboose---perhaps moire non, when more mature subjects are discussed.   

THE STOCKIN' BAG

(Prelude Precaution:   I have no idea how all the search clicking was inserted into this post.  Pray do not click on them, for I know not where they go, nor do I endorse their presence here).

I’ve spoken so much of my Mammaw, of the garden and the swang and the Stow-ries, that I’ve seemed to pass over the three-months-a-year that we had my other Mammaw---Mammaw B., with us at our house.  Daddy was the only one of her children who chose to stay right where he was raised (a great swath of his teen years they lived way out in the country, but still near the same town).   Our house was built on the block where he was born, in the house catty-cornered back next to the railroad, and our lots contained the playground of all the neighborhood boys, with the remnants of their tree-house up the big oak in our front yard all my life.  

His four surviving siblings all moved to Memphis when they were grown (two older brothers died in the Flu Epidemic of 1918, ages five and seven), and sweet Aunt Maggie passed away when I was about fifteen.   So they settled it that Mammaw would rotate the year, with times at each house, and ours fell across the Summer months.   I was always of the opinion that Mother chose those months for her because we had an enormous garden right there on our yard, plus big pea and corn patches out at the country place, and since she didn’t fancy her Mother-in-Law’s company too much anyway, setting her down with a pan of peas or beans to shell every day  was a good way to keep her useful. 

And when she didn’t have her hands in the Pea-Pan, or in the cooler months, Mammaw would crochet---that woman could could use that needle like Stravinski with the baton---she could take a stick and a string and crochet a 3-D version of the Sistine Chapel, I thought. And she had my sly way of going up to the drugstore to sneak a look at the magazine and or comic-book counter, standing there running her eyes over the PICTURES---not the directions of all the stitches---and come home and get going on that pineapple or that pear blossom or star, just from seeing and counting those stitches.   It was the most magical thing I’d ever seen anybody do, and I still marvel at the gift.

And she made me one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever owned---a green silk “stocking bag” with tiny pastel flowers---I’d heard and read of silk---all those little worms working and making that magical thread, but this was the first I’d ever held in my hand.   And you COULD hold it---it was about a foot long, handle-tip to bottom, but with nothing in it, that ethereal stuff could be held entirely in my hand, not a stitch showing.  Those slim skeins of shimmery green looked like they could have been threaded onto the old Singer for sewing.

 She’d say, “Now this is for your Hankachiffs, for now, but it will be your Stockin’ Bag when you get grown, to keep them from getting runs.”

Little did she know of the dreams I’d dreamt of those slender boxes of Fifteen Denier, laid pressed and folded shimmery in the Specials Case at Lipson’s---that great treasure-house of scents and fabrics and shoes.  All of us little girls loved to peek into those mystical drawers of such ethereal wares, we were sure they were not of this earth, for what human could knit such fey cloth as to read through?  And a hint of something to come---something so femininely mysterious about tucking such secrets beneath your skirt---we all marveled and awaited our own turn at such secrecy. 

We mooned for those unreachable garments from the time we could tiptoe high enough to see the contents of those tempting boxes on Aunt Lucy’s shelves, as well, in there in the mysteries such as a box or two of Coty powder, fancy little combs and brushes, and little display of those odd small pull-tab nipples bought for a dime by poor Mamas to use on Co-Cola bottles for their babies’ milk. I can still smell the air from that treasure-cave when the door slid open---a mixture of my Sunday-School-Teacher’s cologne and a new doll’s skin. 

And lo, at about sixteen, we would be seen at church with leg-sheen like no other---having pulled on our our first pair of stockin’s and our ladylike manners with them. 

I’d never put any of my stockings in that lovely silk bag---I was too struck on practically IRONING the things to get them back to their pristine lay-down fold in that box---every single one in its own---I remembered perfectly which in which, where we bought them, or who all gave me each of those five pairs for graduation, and treated them accordingly.   That bag still had handkerchiefs and neck scarves and once a little secret ring for quite a while, and that was purpose enough.

 And not until the advent of mini-skirts and the time at Ole Miss beautiful Rose Clayton (later to become a Senator’s wife) accidentally flashed her racy garterbelt and stocking-tops to the entire audience at Fulton Chapel on Sorority Choir Contest night, did we slowly and unwillingly make the change over to Panty-Hose.    Pity.

 

 

TAAK, DECEMBER, 1946

 

Sometimes in an everyday day there comes along a bit of lagniappe, beyond the bright sun down the stairs and the call from a long-ago friend---a charming and beguiling thing which just causes your breath to slow and all the sounds around you to grow still. . .

This is one such, a lovely missive which has been somewhere in the world since I was four years old, and which, until now, had hovered unseen and unread, just beyond my vision, like a quiet sunbeam across the rug.    I’m not familiar with the writer, and I cannot wait to delve into her words---I’m afraid if I find her right this minute, I might just dive in like digging a spoon into a whole pie.

I just cannot tell you, so see for yourself.   A Thank You note for a Christmas gift from a friend, written by author Sylvia Townsend Warner to Alyse Gregory, in December, 1946.

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Dearest Alyse,

Usually one begins a thank-letter by some graceless comparison, by saying, I have never been given such a very scarlet muffler, or, This is the largest horse I have ever been sent for Christmas. But your matchbox is a nonpareil, for never in my life have I been given a matchbox. Stamps, yes, drawing-pins, yes, balls of string, yes, yes, menacingly too often; but never a matchbox. Now that it has happened I ask myself why it has never happened before. They are such charming things, neat as wrens, and what a deal of ingenuity and human artfulness has gone into their construction; for if they were like the ordinary box with a lid they would not be one half so convenient. This one though is especially neat, charming, and ingenious, and the tray slides in and out as though Chippendale had made it.

But what I like best of all about my matchbox is that it is an empty one. I have often thought how much I should enjoy being given an empty house in Norway, what pleasure it would be to walk into those bare wood-smelling chambers, walls, floor, ceiling, all wood, which is after all the natural shelter of man, or at any rate the most congenial. And when I opened your matchbox which is now my matchbox and saw that beautiful clean sweet-smelling empty rectangular expanse it was exactly as though my house in Norway had come true; with the added advantage of being just the right size to carry in my hand. I shut my imagination up in it instantly, and it is still sitting there, listening to the wind in the firwood outside. Sitting there in a couple of days time I shall hear the Lutheran bell calling me to go and sing Lutheran hymns while the pastor's wife gazes abstractedly at her husband in a bower of evergreen while she wonders if she remembered to put pepper in the goose-stuffing; but I shan't go, I shall be far too happy sitting in my house that Alyse gave me for Christmas.

Oh, I must tell you I have finished my book—begun in 1941 and a hundred times imperilled but finished at last. So I can give an undivided mind to enjoying my matchbox.

Sylvia

P.S. There is still so much to say...carried away by my delight in form and texture I forgot to praise the picture on the back. I have never seen such an agreeable likeness of a hedgehog, and the volcano in the background is magnificent.

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Present Day musings on that long-away and far-ago gift:    What a fabulous missive to receive for a present, beyond a mere THANK YOU---it carries all the charm of the small treasure and the imagination of a talented writer, and can you not smell the sawdust of those golden small plies of wood so intricately joined and mitered?  

I love to think that this small trinket has been passed down in that family, still treasured and kept perhaps behind glass, in memory of those two women of the past, and their friendship or kinship or fond regard of each other.  

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LAWN TEA, OCTOBER 20, 2025  POST #1400

FLIGHT SCHOOL

 

On our Adventure walks, we’re always on the lookout for Fairy houses and activities, and so when we spotted this seeming scar on the tree,  we realized we’d happened on a treasure:  See that tall, thin line extending casually from top to bottom?  That is the Ingress:  the magical doors which slide silently back, revealing a perfectly wonderful scene---the many, many tiers of a Fairy School, its vast heights providing high halls in which the little flightlings practice their takeoffs and landings, their swoops and swirls.

The inside is one great chamber of dozens of towering ledges, some of each kind of surface from which a fledgling flyer might be expected to have to use for takeoff:  Grassy plains, with soft landings and gentle errors, til the little wings catch  their wind;  tree limbs and lacy bushes and crannies in the rock, as well as stony ledges over great chasms, as the little ones grow in verve and skill.   There’s even a water-ledge, its surges held magically from the overflow, each drop hanging precipitously yet never falling onto the balconies below, as the tiny mer-fae burst   from the water masquerading as minnows, spilling silvery droplets as they rise.

 There are delightful classes in floating down on frilly filigree of banisters, ornate brims of opera-boxes, shelves of books and shining glassware.   Specially chosen cadets are schooled in Royal Comportment and Matters of State, for gracing velvet cushions and behind-the-throne lounging ledges built into the back of every royal chair in every kingdom, for quick consultation or immediate dispatch, or just for the fun and honor of having such magical friends close at hand.

And there are indoor-type launches and landings as well, for learning the genteel art of set-down on carpet, stairs, marble floors of great halls.   There’s a special course in Hover-and-Float, for secret landings inside flowers or  behind sugar-bowls and muffin-stands on tea-tables.

  One afternoon features special guests, for it’s dedicated to alighting gently and safely on the shoulders of Folk-friends. 

All these charming scenes reside behind that pale green door, as tall as the gates of fabled cities, rising in tiers of colour and form, as the patient trainers lift and guide, console and cheer, teaching their wee charges to fly.

And when those doors glide open, the glitterings and gleamings, the magical spells and the delight of flight---those are too much for most eyes.  But when you’re lucky enough to be there for the opening---when you’re quick, and when you BELIEVE---THEN you’ll see something you’ll never forget.

           GRADUATION PROMENADE

                YUME CYAN