Feeling Sentimental

 

I have been working away, as my mother's care-giver used to remind us, slowly by slowly. I am spending chunks of time on the various projects on my plate. Three projects at one time seems to be just about exactly right. When I get stuck on one, i can swivel and put in a bit on time on another.

I wandered into the local thrift store. I saw things that reminded me of my mother.

My mother didn't own this exact dress but there were many variations of this dress in her wardrobe over the years. My mother often favored dresses that looked like they were poorhouse uniforms. They made her happy and that is the important thing.

We didn't own these mugs, but we certainly owned lots of things made by Jerusalem potters. Seeing these mugs felt like a visit with old friends.

One of the tree-pits in our neighborhood has been overtaken by morning glories.  Instead of looking like a fence around a rectangle of earth this now looks like a table festooned with a green cloth. Acloser look rewarded me with a tiny purple bloom.

Concern about my cousin has made for lots of emails between those of us who love him. Part of the conversation has been an exchange of old photos which has made me feel very sentimental.

This photo is from my parent's wedding. I am older now than my grandmother was in this photo. My grandmother had just had surgery and was feeling pretty poorly.

Here is another photo from the wedding. My cousin Bonnie is twelve and is already quite a bit taller than my grandmother. I remember standing next to my grandmother when I was four and realizing that It wouldn't be THAT long when I would be taller than she was.  Mama had a stroke not long after that moment. She spent the rest of her life bedridden so I can't tell you how old I was when I overtook my grandmother height-wise.

These are the glasses that my grandmother was wearing in the photo. A couple of years ago they were just about the right prescription for me.

We are all now praying for the recovery of the handsome boy in the red tie. My father kept the tie that he is wearing in that photo until he died. It was a  navy silk shantung striped with while with a bit of gold Lurex. By the time I remember my father showing me that tie it was already a bit bedraggled looking but he kept it.

My grandfather died the summer I was four. I no longer remember his voice but I do remember the feel of his warm hand.

Earlier this week a neighbor gave me a bag of  scarves from her late mother's stash. Her mother was an actress and dressed with a great deal of flair. The scarves so evoked my friend's mother that I have been feeling as if her mother is in my house. 

The sense memory of  the actress got me thinking about my dear friend Sandy's long relationship with my mother.  So in the spirit of that I sent Sandy this photo of my mother's vases on her Brookline window sill.

As my mother was declining,  I kept taking photos of  the objects on the windowsill.

They seemed to evoke my mother even more than her physical declined self.

After I sent Sandy the photo she told me that she has been thinking about my mother and her ability to do things like get scholarships at a Boston university for a family of Iranian immigrants.  I shared some of my mother's tricks for getting people to do good for others.

So here I am feeling the power of objects to evoke so much feeling.

Shabbat Shalom!