Out the Door
I was having a conversation with some friends at Trilogy Salon the other day, a conversation that men never have if they live to be 1000. Kerry and Lauren had complimented me on the straight leg jeans that I was wearing and so I immediately complained about them. Have you ever noticed that women can’t accept compliments? Tell them that you love what they’re wearing and their answer is, “Oh this old thing. I’ve had it in my closet since I was born.” Tell them that their hair looks great and they’ll tell you that they haven’t washed it since the French revolution.
My gripe was that the fashion mavens have decided that this year all straight leg jeans have to be low rise, which means that they sit so low on the hips that they only fit people who have no body circumference. The rest of us can’t find jeans that fit properly unless we trash our 401K’s.
I bought the ones that I was wearing in a larger than usual size so that I’d have a prayer of getting them around my hips so of course they were too big. I thought I’d wear a shirt on top to hide the Hoover Dam gap between my waist line and my pants but that meant having to wear a belt to hold them up which created a bulge that stuck out through my sweater. Got that? If you’re a woman you do, if you’re a guy you stopped reading this two paragraphs ago as you ran from the room screaming.
Lauren and Kerry each offered solutions. Kerry told me where to find straight legs with a high waist that didn’t cost as much as a small country, but Lauren had a truly ingenious solution. “Get yourself an invisible belt,” she said.
Seeing the expression on my face she explained that it was a very thin, clear belt that held up your pants without showing through anything and without causing a bulge in the front. Genius! She also told me exactly where to get one and how much it cost. Now a man would never have known that.
Then our conversation meandered onto the subject of what women go through in order to get themselves out the door versus what men do. Men shave, brush their teeth, throw on a shirt, maybe a tie, pants, socks and shoes and they’re done, sometimes without even looking in the mirror. For a woman the morning begins to unravel the moment the hair dryer comes out. There are mornings when no matter how many times you dry, re-wet, re-dry, mousse, gel, whip and sauté your hair, there’s a clump that stands out at some unnatural angle or else refuses to pouf out a bit so that you look like a wet lemming on the way to the cliff. And then of course there are the rainy days when you could use a blowtorch but within three seconds you’ve got a head of corkscrew curls. For those of us with short hair, a hairnet is the only option thereby achieving that cool school-cafeteria-lady look.
Then you move on to make-up which means you have to look in the mirror. That’s where the trouble starts, especially for those of us who need to use mirrors that magnify 1,000 times since we’re blind without our glasses and we don’t want to look like old Mrs. Griswold who wears her lipstick artfully smeared above and below her lips and sometimes eyebrows.
This super mirror also reveals every wrinkle, every spot, every hair that definitely does not belong in the middle of your forehead. It’s such a pleasure to wake up each morning only to discover that you’ve developed yet another thing on your face that has to be hidden under industrial strength cover-up. You know you’re in trouble when you are no longer smearing it on with your finger but a trowel. And you’re not even out of the bathroom yet.
But eventually you do emerge to face your closet and the decision of what the hell are you going to wear? You ask yourself the vital questions: Is it cold outside? Is it stormy? Are locusts raining down from the heavens? (Locusts are really hell on hair) And the most important question, do you have anything in that God forsaken closet that doesn’t make you look like the Hindenburg on a bad day?
Then you suddenly remember that you have a brand new sweater and matching slacks in a cheery color and your mood lightens. But of course the sweater is too long for the pants because the pants have pleats and what were you thinking buying pants with pleats anyway? So you change the pants but the stockings aren’t the right color so off go the pants to change the stockings but the belt is too thick for the pant loops and what is that bulge in front??? (I really have to get that invisible belt) And the pants are long so you need heels but you don’t have heels the right color and the earrings are long and you need short ones for that collar and the jacket won’t fit over the sweater. So you begin the process again and by the time you finally have an outfit that works, it’s time for bed. In my next life I’m coming back as a man. Or maybe Mrs. Griswold.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Do You Have Five minutes?
Do You Have Five Minutes?
I’m a sucker for surveys. Not the surveys that you find in magazines that test whether you and your spouse are right for each other or whether your husband is still a romantic beast. Honestly, if after thirty years of marriage you need a survey to tell you if you and your spouse are compatible then you should get your head examined. And as for romance, anyone who puts the toilet seat down after thirty years is Cary Grant in my book.
It’s the surveys asking for my opinion of a company’s services that I can’t resist. They don’t have to offer me the possibility of a gift card or a trip to Bermuda. They have me at “Do you have five minutes?” It’s the possibility that my answers could affect whether or not they offer mango-passion-fruit-vodka yogurt in my local supermarket that intrigues me.
They used to do surveys over the phone that took days but I would still get sucked in. (I swear my kids went through puberty before one survey was over!) Once a disc jockey played song snippets then instructed me to tell him if I would turn the radio up, or change the station upon hearing it. I must have looked like a lunatic dancing on the phone while yelling, “Up, up, change, up!” but who cared it was fun.
And then there were the political surveys. I remember getting quite heated during a bottle bill survey. l like to think that I had a crucial part in enabling us all to stand in front of huge, clanking, recycling machines shoving bottles into their orifices even as the machine flashes its endearing message: machine experiencing indigestion please notify manager.
But now with the internet it’s a whole new world out there. No longer do we speak to real live people who lend a bit of fun to the experience. Now we have something called “Survey Monkey” to pick our brains. I wish someone would tell me why they chose that name. It gives me the impression that they don’t think very highly of my intellect. That they feel that if they put enough of us plus a few monkeys on typewriters we’ll eventually give them Hamlet.
Anyway web surveys tend to be rather short. I guess monkeys don’t have much of an attention span. But still I am selective. I only do surveys of products that I like and that offer coupons that I can print out at the end. So it’s a no-brainer that I’ll answer anything about Starbucks. I admit there are times when I begin to feel like the little animal that gets a pellet dropped into her bowl as a reward for performing correctly, but a free latte offsets that feeling nicely.
Last year I couldn’t resist a survey about the commuter rail. They hypnotized me with balloons and free bottled water. A few weeks later I was clicking little circles describing my daily commuter ride. Was the train crowded? Clean? Did the conductor call out the stops? Did the train have windows, seats, a floor? Was I enjoying the free champagne? I dutifully clicked my way through it though I have yet to see the champagne.
But lately I’ve begun doubting this whole survey business. A few months ago I agreed to become a T.J. Maxx “insider”. I was happy to help since I do quite a bit of shopping at “Le Maxx”, (accent on the second syllable please) and I didn’t mind giving them some advice.
For months I dutifully clicked my way through questions about my shopping preferences, when suddenly last month they asked me my opinion of their newly designed credit card. The choices they gave me were incredibly ugly and I told them so. After clicking on the “I-spit-on-your-design” bubble for the twentieth time (they always like to make absolutely sure that your answers are consistent) I was shocked to see something that I had never seen before. They were actually asking me to use words to tell them what was so bad about their designs. And boy did I tell them.
After that debacle I was sure that they would never send me a survey again, but I was wrong. This time they asked me about my pet.
“Aha,” I thought. “They’re thinking of adding pet stuff to their stores.”
So I was a good doobie, clicking on what I bought for the Snoopster, where I bought it, and most importantly, how often I bought it. I sensed that they might not like my answers since I consistently clicked the button that said I bought accessories every few years rather than every few minutes. I would not be the gold mine they were looking for. But it wasn’t until I hit the final question that I longed to tell them once again via words not bubbles, what I thought of their survey.
“Do you consider your pet’s welfare to be more important than your own?”
Since I was not able to use words I searched for the appropriate bubble—ah there it was the, “Are-you-people-out-of-your-frigging-minds??!!!” bubble.
I think I’m going to stop doing their surveys. I’m going to save my answers for the ultimate form that I’m sure the monkey will be sending me any day now, the “Survey, Survey”. I can see the first question now: “Just how often do you take these surveys anyway?”
I’m a sucker for surveys. Not the surveys that you find in magazines that test whether you and your spouse are right for each other or whether your husband is still a romantic beast. Honestly, if after thirty years of marriage you need a survey to tell you if you and your spouse are compatible then you should get your head examined. And as for romance, anyone who puts the toilet seat down after thirty years is Cary Grant in my book.
It’s the surveys asking for my opinion of a company’s services that I can’t resist. They don’t have to offer me the possibility of a gift card or a trip to Bermuda. They have me at “Do you have five minutes?” It’s the possibility that my answers could affect whether or not they offer mango-passion-fruit-vodka yogurt in my local supermarket that intrigues me.
They used to do surveys over the phone that took days but I would still get sucked in. (I swear my kids went through puberty before one survey was over!) Once a disc jockey played song snippets then instructed me to tell him if I would turn the radio up, or change the station upon hearing it. I must have looked like a lunatic dancing on the phone while yelling, “Up, up, change, up!” but who cared it was fun.
And then there were the political surveys. I remember getting quite heated during a bottle bill survey. l like to think that I had a crucial part in enabling us all to stand in front of huge, clanking, recycling machines shoving bottles into their orifices even as the machine flashes its endearing message: machine experiencing indigestion please notify manager.
But now with the internet it’s a whole new world out there. No longer do we speak to real live people who lend a bit of fun to the experience. Now we have something called “Survey Monkey” to pick our brains. I wish someone would tell me why they chose that name. It gives me the impression that they don’t think very highly of my intellect. That they feel that if they put enough of us plus a few monkeys on typewriters we’ll eventually give them Hamlet.
Anyway web surveys tend to be rather short. I guess monkeys don’t have much of an attention span. But still I am selective. I only do surveys of products that I like and that offer coupons that I can print out at the end. So it’s a no-brainer that I’ll answer anything about Starbucks. I admit there are times when I begin to feel like the little animal that gets a pellet dropped into her bowl as a reward for performing correctly, but a free latte offsets that feeling nicely.
Last year I couldn’t resist a survey about the commuter rail. They hypnotized me with balloons and free bottled water. A few weeks later I was clicking little circles describing my daily commuter ride. Was the train crowded? Clean? Did the conductor call out the stops? Did the train have windows, seats, a floor? Was I enjoying the free champagne? I dutifully clicked my way through it though I have yet to see the champagne.
But lately I’ve begun doubting this whole survey business. A few months ago I agreed to become a T.J. Maxx “insider”. I was happy to help since I do quite a bit of shopping at “Le Maxx”, (accent on the second syllable please) and I didn’t mind giving them some advice.
For months I dutifully clicked my way through questions about my shopping preferences, when suddenly last month they asked me my opinion of their newly designed credit card. The choices they gave me were incredibly ugly and I told them so. After clicking on the “I-spit-on-your-design” bubble for the twentieth time (they always like to make absolutely sure that your answers are consistent) I was shocked to see something that I had never seen before. They were actually asking me to use words to tell them what was so bad about their designs. And boy did I tell them.
After that debacle I was sure that they would never send me a survey again, but I was wrong. This time they asked me about my pet.
“Aha,” I thought. “They’re thinking of adding pet stuff to their stores.”
So I was a good doobie, clicking on what I bought for the Snoopster, where I bought it, and most importantly, how often I bought it. I sensed that they might not like my answers since I consistently clicked the button that said I bought accessories every few years rather than every few minutes. I would not be the gold mine they were looking for. But it wasn’t until I hit the final question that I longed to tell them once again via words not bubbles, what I thought of their survey.
“Do you consider your pet’s welfare to be more important than your own?”
Since I was not able to use words I searched for the appropriate bubble—ah there it was the, “Are-you-people-out-of-your-frigging-minds??!!!” bubble.
I think I’m going to stop doing their surveys. I’m going to save my answers for the ultimate form that I’m sure the monkey will be sending me any day now, the “Survey, Survey”. I can see the first question now: “Just how often do you take these surveys anyway?”
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Home Is Where the Doll Is
Home is Where the Doll Is
Enough is enough. No more period clothing, no more history books, and no more over priced “chatchkehs” (pieces of useless decoration) masquerading as history. It used to be that a doll was just meant to be cuddled, fed, diapered, and hugged. Sometimes they had names but they never came with manuals or biographies because somehow we were smart enough to know what to do with them without being told.
I had dolls that were nameless, a Ginny doll that came with a dog and Barbie dolls that came with fabulous wardrobes and the faint air of glamour that they wore. It wasn’t till later that Mattel got the idea of marketing Barbies with families, professions, and doctoral theses in order to sell more stuff. I guess there just wasn’t enough money in selling Barbie cars, showers, estates, and continents. But even then kids weren’t sold genealogies that they had to incorporate in their daydreams.
But it’s a whole new world now. I became aware of that when I gave birth to Lisa. I went home from the hospital with a baby, blankets, diapers, formula, and an American Girl Catalogue. It wasn’t till months later, when I had the time to read it, that I realized that it wasn’t a hospital publication. Apparently the American Girl Doll catalogue was as important to take home from the hospital as the baby.
For those of you who have been hibernating on Alpha Centauri let me explain. When American Girl dolls began there were three dolls representing different periods of American history: Colonial Felicity, Pioneer Kirsten and WWII Molly. Each doll came with accessories, but in addition each doll also came with an entire history, American history to be specific, and a set of books to document it. It seemed un-American to play with these dolls in any way that contradicted their stories. A kid’s imagination got lost in the back-story.
They were a great excuse to spend money. And spend you did since these dolls were so expensive that you needed to take out a mortgage to afford them. They cost $85 back then (now it’s up to $95) and that didn’t include the shoes or any of the other cute stuff that she was pictured with. For that you had to spend an extra $25.00.
Upon seeing the price I hurriedly tossed the catalogue into the trash. But that didn’t stop the American Girl syndicate from sending me a catalogue every month for years. Still, I thought I had been pretty cagey in hiding it from Lisa until one day I heard the dreaded words, “Mom, I want Felicity.”
Despite her pathetic entreaties I refused to budge. There was no way in heaven that I was going to spend $85 on a doll. And hold out I did until one day, I don’t remember why, I finally gave in. I bought Felicity, her shoes, socks, hat, coat, ball gown, riding outfit, rocket ship—there was no end to it. It was like falling into quicksand. Lisa was ecstatic but I was angry about the cost of this doll and worried that soon Mariel would be asking for one too.
Sure enough before our bank account could recover Mariel was playing with Kirsten while I kept getting angrier at how much we were spending on these historical money pits. And as far as I could tell from listening to their play, the girls were treating them as they did all their other dolls and not enacting the revolutionary war or the westward trek. We had spent hundreds of dollars on fancy-shmantzy Barbies.
Lately American Girl dolls have become news in this house once more. Their doll of the year, Chrissa, has a good friend named Gwen who is homeless. A homeless doll that costs $95. Her back story is bleak. Her dad deserted her and her mom forcing them to live in their car and then a shelter. I think the only thing that saves this particular doll from being a complete rip-off is that she doesn’t come with all kinds of accessories like the other dolls. In fact many of the little girls and their mommies are wondering why. The American Girl web site printed these letters from moms:
Gwen didn’t come with much. I'm still hoping AG comes out with more for Gwen before the holidays.
I was rather disappointed by the lack of items for Gwen.
After all just imagine the accessories: A replica of the shelter that they have to leave every morning, the narrow cots they sleep on, and even a cart to carry all their belongings in.
AG claims that this will raise a little girl’s consciousness thereby helping the homeless. Wouldn’t it be better to simply donate the $95 to a homeless shelter? I can just imagine their next doll, an illegal immigrant who comes complete with her own ICE agents to round her family up and deport them. And of course you’d have to pay big bucks for the ultimate accessory: a green card.
What does American Girl have to say about all of this?
Our singular goal is to help girls find their inner star by becoming kind, compassionate, and loving people who make a positive and meaningful difference in the world around them.
And to make a bundle. Sorry. I guess my inner star is just being cynical.
Enough is enough. No more period clothing, no more history books, and no more over priced “chatchkehs” (pieces of useless decoration) masquerading as history. It used to be that a doll was just meant to be cuddled, fed, diapered, and hugged. Sometimes they had names but they never came with manuals or biographies because somehow we were smart enough to know what to do with them without being told.
I had dolls that were nameless, a Ginny doll that came with a dog and Barbie dolls that came with fabulous wardrobes and the faint air of glamour that they wore. It wasn’t till later that Mattel got the idea of marketing Barbies with families, professions, and doctoral theses in order to sell more stuff. I guess there just wasn’t enough money in selling Barbie cars, showers, estates, and continents. But even then kids weren’t sold genealogies that they had to incorporate in their daydreams.
But it’s a whole new world now. I became aware of that when I gave birth to Lisa. I went home from the hospital with a baby, blankets, diapers, formula, and an American Girl Catalogue. It wasn’t till months later, when I had the time to read it, that I realized that it wasn’t a hospital publication. Apparently the American Girl Doll catalogue was as important to take home from the hospital as the baby.
For those of you who have been hibernating on Alpha Centauri let me explain. When American Girl dolls began there were three dolls representing different periods of American history: Colonial Felicity, Pioneer Kirsten and WWII Molly. Each doll came with accessories, but in addition each doll also came with an entire history, American history to be specific, and a set of books to document it. It seemed un-American to play with these dolls in any way that contradicted their stories. A kid’s imagination got lost in the back-story.
They were a great excuse to spend money. And spend you did since these dolls were so expensive that you needed to take out a mortgage to afford them. They cost $85 back then (now it’s up to $95) and that didn’t include the shoes or any of the other cute stuff that she was pictured with. For that you had to spend an extra $25.00.
Upon seeing the price I hurriedly tossed the catalogue into the trash. But that didn’t stop the American Girl syndicate from sending me a catalogue every month for years. Still, I thought I had been pretty cagey in hiding it from Lisa until one day I heard the dreaded words, “Mom, I want Felicity.”
Despite her pathetic entreaties I refused to budge. There was no way in heaven that I was going to spend $85 on a doll. And hold out I did until one day, I don’t remember why, I finally gave in. I bought Felicity, her shoes, socks, hat, coat, ball gown, riding outfit, rocket ship—there was no end to it. It was like falling into quicksand. Lisa was ecstatic but I was angry about the cost of this doll and worried that soon Mariel would be asking for one too.
Sure enough before our bank account could recover Mariel was playing with Kirsten while I kept getting angrier at how much we were spending on these historical money pits. And as far as I could tell from listening to their play, the girls were treating them as they did all their other dolls and not enacting the revolutionary war or the westward trek. We had spent hundreds of dollars on fancy-shmantzy Barbies.
Lately American Girl dolls have become news in this house once more. Their doll of the year, Chrissa, has a good friend named Gwen who is homeless. A homeless doll that costs $95. Her back story is bleak. Her dad deserted her and her mom forcing them to live in their car and then a shelter. I think the only thing that saves this particular doll from being a complete rip-off is that she doesn’t come with all kinds of accessories like the other dolls. In fact many of the little girls and their mommies are wondering why. The American Girl web site printed these letters from moms:
Gwen didn’t come with much. I'm still hoping AG comes out with more for Gwen before the holidays.
I was rather disappointed by the lack of items for Gwen.
After all just imagine the accessories: A replica of the shelter that they have to leave every morning, the narrow cots they sleep on, and even a cart to carry all their belongings in.
AG claims that this will raise a little girl’s consciousness thereby helping the homeless. Wouldn’t it be better to simply donate the $95 to a homeless shelter? I can just imagine their next doll, an illegal immigrant who comes complete with her own ICE agents to round her family up and deport them. And of course you’d have to pay big bucks for the ultimate accessory: a green card.
What does American Girl have to say about all of this?
Our singular goal is to help girls find their inner star by becoming kind, compassionate, and loving people who make a positive and meaningful difference in the world around them.
And to make a bundle. Sorry. I guess my inner star is just being cynical.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
The Writing Life
The Writing Life
I’ve been writing for as long as I’ve been able to hold a pencil. Ideas would fill my head and I would race to get them on paper. It’s a gift, but sometimes I forget how lucky I am to have it. I’ve been thinking about writing lately thanks to a course that I took last week while attending a Directors’ conference for work. It was a simple course on how to teach writing. But those of us who have ever taught writing know that there is nothing simple about it.
About 25 of us sat around a table taking turns introducing ourselves. Though we all described ourselves as teachers or directors, few of us used the term, writer. I was one of the few. After the introductions were over our teacher asked us why or why not we considered ourselves to be writers.
A few points emerged. We believed that to earn the name, writer, a person had to be published or had to enjoy the act of creating through writing. But slowly other ideas began to emerge. We realized that we all wrote something, many things, every day: e-mails, grants, journals, blogs, letters, and on and on. One of the most interesting phrases that kept coming up was, “putting pen to paper.” I don’t know if it was because we were all old school or if being a writer was intrinsically tied in our minds to a quill and parchment. People were insistent on making the distinction between writing on a computer and writing with a pen and paper. It made me smile.
One person who had said earlier that he was not a writer revealed that he wrote a blog everyday. I blurted out, “So how can you say that you are not a writer?!”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I guess maybe I am.”
After our discussion the one common point that remained was that to be a writer you had to enjoy the act itself. We let that realization stand on its wobbly doe legs and moved on. All but me. I believed that we were all writers and the enjoyment or discomfort of writing arose not from inborn talent but from the way we had been taught.
I was lucky. I had teachers who nurtured me, pushing me forward. I saw my poems published in school news papers and literary magazines and that encouraged me further. Later when my first article was printed in the Canton Citizen I thought I had died and gone to Shakespeare heaven. But once I started working for the Citizen my very wise editor taught me that being a writer meant accepting responsibility not only to the craft itself, but to the community. It meant taking on the role of bard, recorder of history. It’s been many years since Beth told me that and last week in the selfish rush of my life, I had forgotten it. And I almost didn’t pay homage to a wonderful lady who died too soon.
When I heard that Peggy Simons had died, I stood frozen, shocked. Though we hadn’t been close friends, I had known her as a warm, graceful, elegant woman during the times that I had been lucky enough to be in her company. The first time I saw her was at a library fund raiser being held at the Blue Hills Country Club to raise money for the library’s renovation.
A live auction was underway. A trip to Disney on Ice was up for bid and the competition was brisk. But the many bidders were no match for one very determined lady. I watched as she raised her number again and again, a smile on her face as if she knew that the prize was already hers. She was so beautiful that I couldn’t stop looking at her and I decided that I had to speak to her afterwards.
I asked her why she had wanted that prize so very much. She smiled as she answered me, “Why it’s for my grandchildren, of course. We’re going to have a wonderful time together.”
From then on no matter which event I was attending I could always spot Peggy immediately. I came to know her warm smile, her light laugh, the way she gave you her entire attention. I was enchanted. We met at AAUW gatherings, library events and the Audubon’s Visual Art Center galas. She never missed them. I still remember the first one that was held at the VAC. Peggy was one of the garden club volunteers who designed the floral masterpieces that graced the rooms. She was working on an arrangement that would sit below a huge autumn painting in the museum, when I came upon her the morning of the event. She sat on the floor gathering materials, looking like one of her grandchildren, so engrossed in her art and obviously enjoying it so much. And the last time I saw her was at a VAC gala. That is how I’ll remember her, always there to help a town institution, looking lovely, smiling, enjoying the people around her. Peggy I will miss you. And to think that in the mad dash of my life I almost didn’t craft the words to tell you good-bye.
It was Beth who gave me the gentle nudge. Beth who reminded me that the words may come silently while sitting in a lonely room but they should be released out loud to share, in joy.
I’ve been writing for as long as I’ve been able to hold a pencil. Ideas would fill my head and I would race to get them on paper. It’s a gift, but sometimes I forget how lucky I am to have it. I’ve been thinking about writing lately thanks to a course that I took last week while attending a Directors’ conference for work. It was a simple course on how to teach writing. But those of us who have ever taught writing know that there is nothing simple about it.
About 25 of us sat around a table taking turns introducing ourselves. Though we all described ourselves as teachers or directors, few of us used the term, writer. I was one of the few. After the introductions were over our teacher asked us why or why not we considered ourselves to be writers.
A few points emerged. We believed that to earn the name, writer, a person had to be published or had to enjoy the act of creating through writing. But slowly other ideas began to emerge. We realized that we all wrote something, many things, every day: e-mails, grants, journals, blogs, letters, and on and on. One of the most interesting phrases that kept coming up was, “putting pen to paper.” I don’t know if it was because we were all old school or if being a writer was intrinsically tied in our minds to a quill and parchment. People were insistent on making the distinction between writing on a computer and writing with a pen and paper. It made me smile.
One person who had said earlier that he was not a writer revealed that he wrote a blog everyday. I blurted out, “So how can you say that you are not a writer?!”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I guess maybe I am.”
After our discussion the one common point that remained was that to be a writer you had to enjoy the act itself. We let that realization stand on its wobbly doe legs and moved on. All but me. I believed that we were all writers and the enjoyment or discomfort of writing arose not from inborn talent but from the way we had been taught.
I was lucky. I had teachers who nurtured me, pushing me forward. I saw my poems published in school news papers and literary magazines and that encouraged me further. Later when my first article was printed in the Canton Citizen I thought I had died and gone to Shakespeare heaven. But once I started working for the Citizen my very wise editor taught me that being a writer meant accepting responsibility not only to the craft itself, but to the community. It meant taking on the role of bard, recorder of history. It’s been many years since Beth told me that and last week in the selfish rush of my life, I had forgotten it. And I almost didn’t pay homage to a wonderful lady who died too soon.
When I heard that Peggy Simons had died, I stood frozen, shocked. Though we hadn’t been close friends, I had known her as a warm, graceful, elegant woman during the times that I had been lucky enough to be in her company. The first time I saw her was at a library fund raiser being held at the Blue Hills Country Club to raise money for the library’s renovation.
A live auction was underway. A trip to Disney on Ice was up for bid and the competition was brisk. But the many bidders were no match for one very determined lady. I watched as she raised her number again and again, a smile on her face as if she knew that the prize was already hers. She was so beautiful that I couldn’t stop looking at her and I decided that I had to speak to her afterwards.
I asked her why she had wanted that prize so very much. She smiled as she answered me, “Why it’s for my grandchildren, of course. We’re going to have a wonderful time together.”
From then on no matter which event I was attending I could always spot Peggy immediately. I came to know her warm smile, her light laugh, the way she gave you her entire attention. I was enchanted. We met at AAUW gatherings, library events and the Audubon’s Visual Art Center galas. She never missed them. I still remember the first one that was held at the VAC. Peggy was one of the garden club volunteers who designed the floral masterpieces that graced the rooms. She was working on an arrangement that would sit below a huge autumn painting in the museum, when I came upon her the morning of the event. She sat on the floor gathering materials, looking like one of her grandchildren, so engrossed in her art and obviously enjoying it so much. And the last time I saw her was at a VAC gala. That is how I’ll remember her, always there to help a town institution, looking lovely, smiling, enjoying the people around her. Peggy I will miss you. And to think that in the mad dash of my life I almost didn’t craft the words to tell you good-bye.
It was Beth who gave me the gentle nudge. Beth who reminded me that the words may come silently while sitting in a lonely room but they should be released out loud to share, in joy.
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