Being A Girl . Cooking
MadMen Allusions No Illusions
On June 1, 2015 by Speranza
No one has captured an era more effectively, more poignantly and frankly, more truthfully than the creators of ‘MadMen.’
I won’t make this into a thesis paper – even though I am tempted and could go on and on with psychological examples – but the way that children were treated back in that time slot especially resonated with me.
Consider the following conversation circa 1965 between myself and my perfectly lovely mother.
ME: “When Daddy leaves the car running, I get really scared. I know you can’t drive and I worry that the car will drive away on its own. What would happen?”
MUM: (Lighting a cigarette and snapping open the newspaper) “Don’t talk daft. Now, are you peeling the carrots?”
You will notice the distinct absence of any heartfelt “When you say, I feel …” conversations, no one-on-one explanations and certainly no therapists were consulted.
And you know what? All I wanted was a practical answer like, “Hell, we’d pull the car key out” or how about “I know where the hand brake is!” I continued to fret for YEARS about this and have since relegated it to simple childhood anxiety although truly, I was just trying to find out if ANYONE would know what to do.
It’s not that unreasonable!
Being A Mum
Happy Mother’s Day!
On May 9, 2015 by Speranza
I can’t remember my mother’s voice or even her face sometimes. On some sensory level I can still feel the softness of her skin as it encased the bone when I would trace my hand back and forth across the planes of her cheek and brow but it’s been nearly forty years now. I dream of her sometimes and all of the normal things I would have liked to have done with her and never did, like treating her to some highlights at the hair salon, imagining her squealing delight at my sons – especially as babies – or having an English tea out somewhere a bit fancy.
My mother was truly beautiful inside and out and possessed great vats of personal charm. In the hospital she received flowers from every tradesperson we had ever hired – and the milkman too, all of whom had received “a bit of cake” and a cup of tea when they were working at our house.
In now vintage photos with her hair falling in a shining rope (“I don’t know, I s’pose you just wound it round your finger, really” she answered unsatisfactorily when I pressed her as to how this was achieved) she looked exactly like Lauren Bacall, a childish pronouncement that pleased her immensely. I once asked her sister (my aunt obviously) if she thought I bore any resemblance to my mother and she looked at me and said “Weeeell, not to be rotten but your mother was a very good looking woman you know.”
Nice.