I still go to the mall with my mother. I don’t suppose we ever stop living with the ones we love. It’s only a matter of opening my closet door. Passing my hand along the draping of sleeves — each allowed the space to breathe as she taught me. We exchange silent ensemble ideas. I settle on the one where she clutches her imaginary pearls with more than approval. Pure excitement! And I am complete.
When it’s time to paint, I return the clothes to their rightful spaces and put on my splattered hoodie and pants, as if it were Sunday morning after sitting in my six year old’s white dress on a folding chair near the kitchen at Bethesda Lutheran. Smoothing out the drape with gloved hands long before and after Easter. Feeling to my very core the meaning of “good clothes.”
I read recently that memories are the handrail of the stairs we continue to navigate. So it’s no surprise as I made my ascent in yesterday’s sketchbook, that the ruffles appeared on the woman’s portrait. White ruffles. My mother’s favorite. And didn’t they suit her. So. I hear her saying, “Ooh, I need to find that blouse.” And I smile. Heart strong, I grab the rail and climb. Forever making ruffles.
I waited two years for it to come back. And yesterday, without my knowledge or permission. Without my asking or pleading. She placed it in my hand.
I chose the Starbuck’s at Barnes and Noble in the Galleria because I could walk to it within minutes. We had planned to have coffee, to visit of course. No chairs were available. (Which I can see now was clearly by design.) She said we could walk around a little. My feet, already on yes, were darting out into the mall. Climbing the stairs to the main floor, she said they had just acquired a new sponsor for their podcast. (I had done their podcast about a year ago. That’s how we met.) Somehow I knew which store it would be. She asked if I had ever been to “Sweet Ivy.” I smiled. (You’re probably smiling too.) That was my mom’s name, I said. She knew how much my mom meant to me from our interview. We started walking toward the store.
No, I said, I hadn’t been inside the store. I couldn’t. It first opened just as my mom passed away. Waiting for the next flight back to France, I walked the Galleria Mall. I saw the name of the new store. This “Sweet Ivy.” The tears flowed. I couldn’t go in. It was all too fresh. My mom loved fashion. We shared that. Deeply. We walked that mall a million times. Took the pictures. Gave the compliments. Shared the laughs. Hung packages on wrists. This love, this friendship, ever en vogue.
But yesterday, it was time. It was more than easy. My hesitation was carried by my new friend, and we went, nearly skipped like school girls, into the Sweet Ivy. I shared my story again. Gave out my business cards. Explained paintings. Laughed. Sipped the coffee. From mother to store, the Ivy connected. The woman behind the counter reached over to a rack of gorgeous, and pulled out a blouse, a blouse that couldn’t have Ivy-ed more — she said it’s a small, put it on, and from what I can only imagine was my mother’s hand, she placed it in mine. The boomerang had returned.
Of course it fit. Everything fits. In its time. In its place. I suppose we throw them daily, these boomerangs. Never knowing which one will return. Nor when. I guess you just have to be ready. Open. And grab on with all your might when they do.
So I hike up the cuffed sleeves of this beautiful silk, and tell you the story, giving it a mighty fling, knowing love will always return.
The physical therapist for my hand wants to be a singer. I like knowing that she plays guitar. That her fingers create music. Maybe the song she’s humming in her head is traveling down into her heart, through her arms, then fingers, and into my hand. (I may have heard my pinky sing.)
I suppose as a dreamer, I’ve always trusted those with a dream.
My mother wanted to be a dress designer. And it was that dream that carried us from Herberger’s, to malls, to boutiques, to dressing rooms around the country. It was pure joy that reflected off of three-way mirrors and bounced from her heart to mine. Lives well designed.
Sitting at the table, drinking egg-coffee and eating home-made pastry, I asked my grandma what she would like to be. “A UPS driver,” she said quickly. “Then I could drive from house to house and sit with people and have coffee and visit.” “I think we’re doing that right now,” I said. We smiled in the moment of that dream come true.
When we think of people not just as who they are, but who they are trying to become, I think maybe we can be a little more forgiving, a little more empathetic, perhaps more understanding, and certainly more joyful — what could be more fun that travelling along on a dream?!! But we have to be willing to dare, and willing to share. I encourage you to do both. My singing pinky is proof that everything is worth the dream.
Certainly they had more money than we did, the women who owned BonJos — an upscale dress shop for the women of Alexandria, Minnesota. They probably had big houses. Nice cars. But when I saw my mom pull back the curtain and step out of the elevated dressing room at the Viking Plaza mall, I knew what class meant. And it was beautiful.
This is not to say that others didn’t have it. People all around us did. At all levels. But what my mother taught me, standing tall above her height and pay grade, was that elegance, grace, true beauty, came from within. And she wore it better than anyone.
And of course she aged. It happens to all of us. But what’s remarkable, I only ever saw that woman — that woman coming out from behind the curtain, daring the town and the mirror to really see her. That woman who never thought she was brave, but dared to extend her height with heels from Herberger’s. I saw her with smiling breath held. And it wasn’t just me, I saw the owners catch themselves in approval. BonJos was lit brighter than the fluorescent of any mall.
Some will tell you that love is blind. I don’t agree. Maybe love is the only thing that truly sees. Maybe love is the reason even well into her 80’s this beauty remained.
Here’s how I see it. I hope we all can see it this way — Youth will fade. Real beauty never does.
Maybe because I never had to doubt it with my mother, I was able to write about it.
We used to spend hours trying on clothes together. When the “fit” really fit — oh, it was magnificent. Praises of oohs and aahs filled the air. And when it missed, the knee hugging laughter went on through the entire fashion cycle. We were safe. Together. Seeing each other. Loving each other. From the lowest to the highest moments. Finding the beauty of it all along the way.
For a couple of years, the clothing store J.Jill carried my book, “I’m not too busy.” Of course it was also at bookstores. Galleries. Gift stores where I sold my artwork. But this was something special. J.Jill didn’t sell any other books. Just clothing. We had shopped in the Ridgedale store enough for some of the clerks to know us. One Saturday morning, properly caffeinated with Caribou, we began trying on the J.Jill clothing. Continuously giggling in the delight of books being in the dressing room and on display throughout the store. It was the perfect pocket of time.
My mother brought the white linen blouse to the counter to purchase. She looked lovely in it. I told her so. The clerk had as well. My book rested on the counter as my mother reached for her credit card. The J.Jill employee looked at me, in that way that maybe she knew me. And perhaps she had looked at my bio in the book, or maybe she just remembered from last Saturday. It didn’t matter. We all had been seen. And that was the gift.
I have that blouse. Along with those precious moments. I carry them daily. I will never be too busy to remember. My heart giggles, and I am seen.
