An entire pink room greeted me as I emerged from our room this morning. Chris had turned on a whole carnival of lights, draped up and above the dining table, over onto the bookcases, spanning the doors of the china cabinet, and swagged over the curtain like a New Year’s skyline.
The heart has been glowing on the table for weeks, now---it’s like one of those projects we used to make long ago, with starch-dipped string wrapped around a balloon, the whole thing given a thorough coat of Faultless spray to absolute stiffness, and then the balloon deflated.
The table itself had quite a few holiday decorations and representations left over, with the Christmas dishes and holly goblets and a few red paper napkins and two square vases in red and silver.
There's a sweeping little light-up angel-in-a-cube, some pink candy canes and a pearly-pinky-tan Santa standing in Sweetpea’s Christmas tumbler.
My favorite cup, with some hot-pink paper napkins, chosen over turkeys and harvest-fruit for the Thanksgiving table, because “these will go.” And they kinda DID, because we used the Burgundy Plates. In the chair, there’s even a glimpse of the gaudy sandwich “platter” from our Un-Super Bowl party.
On the right, a frosted-glass lampshade, one of five bought with good intentions, but which did not fit the little chandelier. We use those outdoors mostly, on the patio in Summer.
And way down right front, my Mother’s wavy fruit-bowl, used for special occasions all the time I was growing up. It was used many a time for crudite' at parties, way back when they were still just a “vegetable tray,” and mostly consisted of sticks---carrot, celery and cucumber, because that’s what we HAD, when snow peas and jicama were still as unheard of as Sri Lanka.
The stack of pages is print-outs of my Paxton People, just to hold them in my hands before all the books were printed.
Once, on a decorating show, I saw a beautiful young woman show pictures of the "before" of her home, before she was married, with roses and pinks and lacy pretties, and then the stark leather and steel and glass of the "after," because her husband (an NFL player, if I remember correctly), felt like such frou-frou was just "girl stuff." I remember her wistful voice, "I had to give up my roses."
I asked Chris if he were comfortable with all our pastels and pillows and pretties, and he said, in his sweet, rambling way: "I don't care if you string Kewpie dolls around the walls, just so YOU'RE here." And that's how our life was.
I hope YOUR Valentines Day is ROSY as well!
💕
