So vivid and lovely—your description of your mother, just as I imagine she was. Although I never met her, you certainly conjured the context of that world: Manhattan and its suburbs in the 1950s and ‘60s, which I grew up in. Thank you for the memories 😍
I love your summing up of your mother: "She was funny, smart, glamorous, and sometimes surprisingly vulgar. I have never been very good at seeing my mother from a distance like you do here. Several years ago I ran into a friend from third grade (!) when coming up out of the subway at Union Square. We chatted for a while and then he told me he had a video that he'd made from a home movie his father had taken at one of the large picnics my parents and their friends used to hold in the summer. When it arrived, I popped into into the VCR player and picked out my mother immediately--the most beautiful woman in the group, seated in an Adirondack chair and wearing a lovely summer dress, with a cigaret in one hand and some kind of cocktail in the other, entirely was oblivious to all the brats (including her own) that were running in circles around the adults.
I watched it over and over again, for it was a glimpse into a stranger's life I didn't know or even recognize.
I think mothers are always strangers in some respect. I got such a charge out of trying to reconstruct mine from old photos and letters. I realized how much I miss her, and how much I owe to her. I wish her last two decades had been happier (my ex and I both said, Don't give up your job, come live with us), but she made the only choices available to the Father Knows Best generation. In all, though, hers was a happy and fulfilling life. We don't get to pick our parents or the times we live in.
It’s hard to believe Mary only went to Europe once: her elegance was downright old world, at least in the days I knew her. And was the first photo taken in the “martini room”? She was so lovely and your description really brings her back! ❤️
such sweet memories. Thanks for sharing, Ann. There were a lot of lost women in that generation and they were, in my case, a push to join the women's movement in the 1970s.
You just gotta love "throw him back."
I wish I'd done it with ALL of them.
So vivid and lovely—your description of your mother, just as I imagine she was. Although I never met her, you certainly conjured the context of that world: Manhattan and its suburbs in the 1950s and ‘60s, which I grew up in. Thank you for the memories 😍
I love your summing up of your mother: "She was funny, smart, glamorous, and sometimes surprisingly vulgar. I have never been very good at seeing my mother from a distance like you do here. Several years ago I ran into a friend from third grade (!) when coming up out of the subway at Union Square. We chatted for a while and then he told me he had a video that he'd made from a home movie his father had taken at one of the large picnics my parents and their friends used to hold in the summer. When it arrived, I popped into into the VCR player and picked out my mother immediately--the most beautiful woman in the group, seated in an Adirondack chair and wearing a lovely summer dress, with a cigaret in one hand and some kind of cocktail in the other, entirely was oblivious to all the brats (including her own) that were running in circles around the adults.
I watched it over and over again, for it was a glimpse into a stranger's life I didn't know or even recognize.
I think mothers are always strangers in some respect. I got such a charge out of trying to reconstruct mine from old photos and letters. I realized how much I miss her, and how much I owe to her. I wish her last two decades had been happier (my ex and I both said, Don't give up your job, come live with us), but she made the only choices available to the Father Knows Best generation. In all, though, hers was a happy and fulfilling life. We don't get to pick our parents or the times we live in.
It’s hard to believe Mary only went to Europe once: her elegance was downright old world, at least in the days I knew her. And was the first photo taken in the “martini room”? She was so lovely and your description really brings her back! ❤️
Yes, that was the martini room. Many happy times. She loved my friends, and I'm glad you got to know her.
such sweet memories. Thanks for sharing, Ann. There were a lot of lost women in that generation and they were, in my case, a push to join the women's movement in the 1970s.
Just love your memories about your Mom.