Poppies for Happiness
I was listening to Annette Hanshaw’s recording of “I’ve Got ‘It'” when I found this dress on Anthropologie, which is absolutely perfect. The dress conjures up visions of baking sugar cookies in a sunlit kitchen with huge french patio doors framed by vases of yellow and orange tulips and poppies.
It’s so funny that some things have that promise in them that surpasses what they are; that if I wore this dress it would give me the reality of that sunlit kitchen in the countryside that I crave. That those glasses will give me the dinner parties with tons of friends I long to have on Friday nights in Summer. That these plates will make up for the inherent inequities in my french toast, transforming them into fluffy, light, vanilla-scented triangles of brioche and egg, straight out of Bouchon. I’m no Thomas Keller, and there are no plates on earth that will make my french toast anything other than the heavy, eggy, dense organic rectangles that it is…which is fine, but not the stuff dreams are made of.
That I imbue these things with this energy and hope is fascinating to me; that I would on this day rather have the instant gratification of what is admittedly a lovely dress, a beautiful set of plates, or an adorable set of glasses than set the money aside for the house in the country with the french doors to a patio perpetually bathed in both warm sunsets and chilly sunrises is impractical. It’s silly, when I spell it all out like that. But think about it a little more. Think about the house in the middle of the day, during the hottest hours of the summer, or the coldest middle of the night, when you have been dirtying dishes all week and your kitchen is cluttered, it’s gray outside, and there are clothes strewn in complete disarray all over your bedroom.
When you have the dress, you have the dress and the promise of a beautiful kitchen which is always sunny and clean, which always smells like baking chocolate and bergamot, like pistachio shortbread cookies with whipped lemon cream cheese filling. There’s no mortgage. Our cat hasn’t sharpened her claws on any of the furniture, and there are always friends coming over for elaborate tea parties that appear effortlessly on a beautiful vintage 1960s table. Thinking of it like this, it’s so much more than just a dress.
This is silly. I should want to put away as much as I can manage so that I can have the greater dream, but I have in my time bought into these smaller things not only because they are nice, because they make me feel more like the imaginary woman in that lovely kitchen, but because I have been afraid that if I reached that place, it won’t be all it’s cracked up to be. That even if I manage to have those elaborate tea parties, messes happen in real life. Garbage accumulates if no one takes it out, dishes need to be washed every evening, and rain is a fact of life in the Pacific Northwest.
So the dress is perfect. It’s perfect because it’s lovely, well made and enviable. It’s also perfect because of that song – that once I had it, if I had it, the way I have had so many of these beautiful things, I might look down yet again at myself and think “I have it, but it don’t do me no good”.
Forgive the rant; the song is lovely, and for 99¢ won’t take me too far from my beautiful house, which isn’t mine yet, but oh, I hope it’ll still be there when I’m ready.
Birds on a Wire
Bees!
A final note – I’m open to new recipes for french toast, and would love some suggestions. Because great food tastes great even if you serve it on cardboard. ♣
♥ Momo
