Dear Sweet June

  "Time was all we had until the day we said goodbye. I still remember every moment of those endless summer nights"              Richard Marx

The first days of summer are my favorite, like a long overdue time capsule exploding in my mind. Flashbacks of late night carnival rides and endless laughter. Lazy June afternoons hangin' by the pool turning into laid back evenings & bbq. The tiniest whiff of coconut oil and a flood of fabulous comes racing back to me, Texas, Kansas, L.A., NYC and every ray of sunshine in between.

Country Rodeo dances and boys in cowboy hats. Girls in sundresses and the smell of fresh cut grass.

Dancing in high heels beneath draped white lights on crowded streets in New York City and the scent of fresh baked bread in Little Italy.

Summer concerts and cut off denims, singin', screamin' and losin' yourself in the sound

Fancy wedding parties upon an August starlit veranda. Girls in sequins and boys dressed like Casablanca.

Santa Monica sunrise breakfasts, shorts, sweaters & toes in the sand.

Las Vegas Hard Rock nights and the way love lights you up when it takes your hand...

Dear Sweet June,Oh how I've missed you. Thanks for always bringing Summertime and the very BEST of times back to me.   Sincerely,  BB

Hepburn Hugs & Ric Ocasek Dreams

Birdee Bow

Mustard Sandwiches And You Can Light Your Candle Off Of Mine

“If you have a candle, the light won't glow any dimmer if I light yours off of mine.” 
― Steven Tyler

Raquel was a girl who lived a few streets over and around the corner from my house.  She suddenly appeared one afternoon while I was playing in my backyard.  One short conversation over a chain length fence, fast forward a few moments later and we're both sitting crossed legged Indian style in the grass with my basset hound Mack.  Ahhhh the quick bonding of childhood!

We were both around seven years old and  I  never really knew her as Raquel, but rather by her nickname Rocky.  Even through the eyes of a child, I saw Rocky as a bit disheveled. She more often than not had dirty hair, mismatched clothing worn with long woolen socks and dress sandals. I thought it an odd footwear choice as it was summertime in Texas and I was living in my bare feet and running around like a wild banshee. I wondered how anyone could handle those Sunday School dress sandals all day and have any fun at all, the very idea of those socks looked mighty hot to me.  Rocky was cool as heck, adorable freckled face, big brown eyes, scrappy tough and always up for adventures.  I always looked forward to her visits, but the one thing I never looked forward to was her passion for mustard and bologna sandwiches.  She seemed to have a never ending supply of white bread and yellow mustard stained crumbs in her hands and a heaping excess of mustard all around her mouth. Dried mustard is a crusty, scary thing and don't even get me started on the overwhelmingly sickening vinegary smell . UGH. My stomach churns even now at the very thought of it.  A very unhinging kind of sight which created many years of my own mustard avoidance and still to this day I only use the stuff in the most sparing of fashion. I guess mustard scars run deep.  Anyway, it wasn't even really the mustard sitch, but rather a spat over sharing toys which eventually sent me marching straight into the kitchen to seek my mom's council one afternoon over Rocky.

Ok, so as with most things in life, mom's know everything and even though I thought my back yard pow-wow play dates with my new friend Rocky were mysterious and quite possibly even a secret?  Nope, ahhhh the view from a kitchen window! I told Mom about Rocky's inability to share and the overwhelmingly creepy mustard issue. She gently explained to me that Rocky was alone a lot and how she lived only with her father and he worked in the oil field all day and wasn't at home too much to spend time with her and her older sister.  I guess Rocky was left alone to make a lot of bologna sandwiches for lunch. Her sharing and wardrobe choices were also all on her own. I thought it was kinda grown up of Rocky, but it also made me feel so sad.

Mom told me that sometimes people don't know how to share because they don't feel like they've been given much in life so sharing means losing something they might never get back.  She told me we all learn at different points in life that the more we give the more we eventually get in return. Mom's resolution to my problem went something like this, "if you don't like the way she's behaving then  teach her differently by your own actions and remember to be patient"   Uhhh what?  TEACH her?  What did that even mean?  HELLO mom I'm NOT a teacher, just go out there & TELL her to SHARE. Jeeeeez.  

A few days later Rocky and I were trying to pull my unwitting basset hound around the back yard in a wagon when Mom came out with iced lemonade and cookies on a tray.  "Have as much as you like, there's more inside!" her words rang out.  As we ran toward the goodies, mom put the tray down and pulled out a warm wet washcloth,  BAM! before I even knew what was happening this lightening speed scratchy wash cloth was now suddenly all over my face in a most humiliating swiping and blinding manner as she said things like "oh sweetheart you should really mind your manners, your face is covered with dirt & your hands are just filthy, you're certainly not being very ladylike! You should always keep your face clean"  As she finished wiping my face with her supersonic wash force,  she continued cleaning my hands. Ok by now I'm thinking,  mom this is entirely uncalled for & wayyyy outta line, when suddenly she pulled out another washcloth only this one was for Rocky.
  "Oh Rocky you're just a mess too let's get that mustard off your face and those crumbs off your hands, ladies must be ladies!"   I watched in amazement as Rocky's face became mustard free for the first time in our short friendship and her smile more bright. As we stuffed our faces with cookies and lemonade, I realized at that moment something which I am constantly reminded of even to this day,
My mom is a genius
      and she looks so pretty in the sunlight.
 
Go easy on the mustard today.

Hepburn Hugs & Ric Ocasek Dreams
xo

Birdee Bow

The Way She Was....

“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.”   Eleanor Roosevelt

Having just learned to play The Way We Were on piano, my excitement of learning the song was trumped only by my ability to sing along while clinking through it on the keyboard. Yeh, I was feeling awesome in that, I might be a 4th grader but I'm already completely grown up, kinda way. As I made my way to the second verse I saw her there, standing in the doorway of my parent's formal living room. How excited I was to see her, it felt as if a dream!  I wanted to jump up, run and squeeze her tiny frame. NoNoNo she motioned with her head, "don't get up now, please keep playing. Will you start again? From the beginning!"  I did.  I would have done anything for her, my fabulous Great Aunt Loma.

 Funny how someone who had been over the age of 60 my entire life was the youngest spirited, most vibrant woman I had ever known. An exotic world traveler, she and her handsome husband had journeyed to 6 out of 7 continents and sailed most every sea.  I remember her in Japanese inspired silk dresses and brightly hued pink lipstick with flashy earrings and chic strappy sandals. She personified the type of style I had only seen in magazines and envisioned on the shelves of fancy Dallas department stores. If that truly wasn't enough to make them the most rad couple ever, they drove a vintage 1965 red Chrysler Newport (sunglasses on, top down) and they loved to dance. Yep, they were the poster kids for glamour past a certain age and a welcomed relief for me any time their travels brought them closer to the tiny dirt road towns I called home, small Texas towns where she herself had grown up as a cotton farmer's daughter and a survivor of the Great Depression.

I'm not sure why she favored my sister and I, but she did.  And oh how I loved that she spoiled us by sending trinkets, jewelry and lovely items from places like Turkey, Greece, India, France! Postcards from beach destinations and tropical isles, far away places my 10 year old mind had only read about in books and could not, for one minute, even imagine visiting. Ohhhh the stories!  Fun stories of adventures, brightly lit cities, museums, art galleries, plane, train and ship rides. Even a few nail biting re-enactments of near death experiences, including a cruise ship fire that found them swimming for their lives in The River Nile.  One thing always held true,  she was on a full fledged mission to live her life out loud without hesitation.  No matter the age, she would always create for herself a colorful existence, a colorful existence of magnetism.

 I often wonder if this is a universally shared vision of Great Depression era children. It was as if her experience of such sadness and overwhelming hardship in youth created an unrelenting determination for beauty, limitless freedom and an unstoppable charisma. I do believe that for every darkness we endure within this lifetime there is an equally bright burning flame to light our way.  Loma was a flame. She was a lovely, living, breathing flame of fearlessness.

I like to think she lit my way as I can still see the indelible colors of her as they Light up the corners of my mind
 and I am on a bumpy and oft failed quest to one day become as fearlessly fabulous.

The way she was.
The way we were.

Wishing you Adventure and Love

Hepburn Hugs & Ric Ocasek Dreams
xo

Birdee Bow