summer dresses

hadn't planned to blog and or write today--but as i have told you, it hits me and haunts me sometimes until all i can do is get it over with--not knowing mostly where the thoughts or ideas will lead exactly but today it is a feeling---one i am not confident i will be able to convey, but i shall try--


a quick trip to the mall today with robyn, had us exiting through one of the women's clothes departments---and there is where i stopped to touch it to let it take me back to my mother's summer dresses---

it seems some of the styles she wore when i was a child are returning or maybe it was just the delicate mix of the floral colors, that brought her image rushing back to me in a flood of emotions--


i could see her on a Sunday afternoon, sitting on the front porch of my grandmother's house, my dad's mom--"queenie"---


as a child we would go there for dinners---straight from church--so mama would never change her clothes----in the summer or even early spring, it would be hotter to her than a sauna---she would have her stockings on and girdle----she was quite miserable and the fans in the piano bench were always taken out and used profusely by her and my dear aunt alice---



lily my great aunt, would always be in a sweater, as she had a stroke years before, she was often cold even in the hottest of days-


my mom always thought she was enormous and we all tried to tell her, that she could take her hose off and she didn't need to cover up her arms---but she never did and always did-


today i could smell her chantilly and hear her funny laugh---but most of all i could remember her dresses and the searches for them-


the many shopping trips with her, the trips downtown, the way the car felt when we returned to it on a hot summer day----the way we fought over my clothes, the way she told me then, what i tell my daughter---and now how i see how much joy she must have felt, when we found that perfect dress--the one that she and i both loved and the rarity of that occasion-


but most of all i see her-i see her as she was, so full of life---her legs making that scratching noise as she crossed them and made that look at me--the look that she thought no one else saw--the look that meant, i am dying out here on this porch, i can't wait to come home and take these clothes off and get in my "house-coat"----which she wore to extreme---

yes the summer dresses only worn on Sundays, are what brought me back today and made me sad and regretful and nostalgic---

when i see her next how i hope it will be in the summer on a Sunday

read me know me---touch me

okay--this may be a little cloudy--i hope not---i told you before that i am not a disciplined writer--how most of what i write comes out of an almost uncontrollable urge to do so--some idea or feelings that won't leave me alone until i do----i also have to say i believe my daughter-in-law adrienne has inspired me to write more lately--since she has been blogging regularly on mondays---

but as i must get out to the grocery store this beautiful monday morning--i also must write, now, in fear that i will lose my spark-


i will attempt to pull together--however loosely--three bombarding ideas---1--that i don't really know if i want writers to read my stuff, only readers---2--how much of yourself do you let others know, before they hate you---and hmmmm i knew there was a third one---see i have waited too long to write!!!!


if the third one comes to me, i will elaborate-----



as i have shared in a previous blog---i have a weird confidence in my writing---i hesitated to share that again, because i fear people will not feel the need to compliment me any longer---let me explain


this confidence does not have any basis in human acceptance---not to say i have not had the accolades of some very close members of my family and some dear sweet friends and readers---but for the most part i have not--as a matter of fact--(not to call anyone out--and they won't see this anyway, since they are not a fan-haha) my family and friends, would have to be paid to read my rantings----or and this would be worse--they have read them and have no opinion----



oh i think i just remembered my third thought!!! i am convinced that one of the very top things one human wants from another is to be known---not even accepted but understood--the good bad and the terminally ugly---


i don't know where it came from--just my personality--but you would not have to know me long, to know me-----yes there were a few years, when i altered this a bit--



i suppose part of me wants to connect, but most of the time as i share my inner most struggles and concerns, fears and regrets---i am met with silence---that's when i feel like the only one who got the memo it was a nudist party-


when people hear someone divulging inadequacies about themselves---i guess, the uncomfortable listener, is thinking something like this-----"hey, i know she is holding back--no one tells all of their sins or mis-steps--so as bad as she is sounding--you mean there is more"-------and there is more of course---i'm a sharer, but i'm not stupid-


as for the writing tool, being used to know a person----i feel if more writers would stop listening to writers and critics--then they might just have something to say---


isn't that what it is all about------


i entered this writing contest a couple of years ago--it asked for about ten or so pages----i entered "queenies bequest"----one of their most negative things they had to say, was, they didn't believe it was fiction-----okay---it was and it wasn't---based on some real people and events---with lots of fiction and character flaws--that were different from most of the real life people's quirks----except maybe one---which was "a little" over the top----


they loved the character development---and although i was thrilled that they even read my work and critiqued (even if i paid them)---their messages were very confusing to me----


so i write and yes i don't plan to be published--(have had one article published)---but have these critics, agents, whoever, been reading in the past twenty years-----for the most part the rules have been thrown out---

just write me a story, just tell it to me entertainingly and touch me---let me see who you are and what you are really saying---make me yearn to reach for something more-----draw me into your head and make me know you and only imagine what you are holding back--