still

for my dad, who's 84 today

when I am still
I can still smell
that beat-up truck
with sticky red seats
and the radio knobs that wouldn’t work
so I could fiddle with them all I wanted

driving home from school...

and when I am still
I can still smell the mockingbird house
we visited…catawpa tree’s shed
its wiggly worms…
sun beating down on a rotten red porch

craning my head, trying to see more between the boards

when I am still
I can still smell
your working skin
underneath green broadcloth…yellow rice
steaming on the stove and cornbread
muffins just like I like…with pea-juice on them

and the taste of the alabama dirt they grew in

when I am still
I will smell
your Sunday smell…and my daughter’s
little voice telling you
how sweet it is and how sweet your are….
in her princess world ~

when I am still
I will smell my daddy’s hugs….my father’s kiss
light on my lips
no matter where I am

growing, going…

still.

Glamorama

From our first ballerina jewelry box, we're smitten with a chest to store our treasures. Not long after getting my ballerina box, I discovered my mom's "old" jewelry box that had loads of bootie to be pillaged. From high school rings to rhinestone brooches to clippy earbobs that pinched but looked fabulous, I was hooked, and often visited there to encrust myself (even tho the metals and the funky smell of the waxed beads and celluloid sometimes left me feeling a little high ;) )

Now that box sits on my dresser along with a vintage red lacquer box that also belonged to her and still holds some old secrets from another life lived. And even though I have these wonderful treasure chests, I like to see my most favorite sparkly things! I'd always puzzled over how to make this work until I found glumpire's enid collins collection AND her pin mannequin.

Maybe it's the light from the window or the effortless way everything seems arranged but that photo was instant...irrevocable...mannequin LUST.  There, I've said it, disturbing tho that may sound?  Like many things in my now, make-do living arrangement (my daughter and I share a room, and did I mention she's 9) my mannequin doesn't exactly look *like* glumpire's?  Mine does have some lovely vintage brooches, but it's also dripping with an 80's charm necklace, some homeless baubles from fave etsy sellers that deserve more than a bottom of a drawer, a sparkly star headband and, last but not least a slightly rumpled silver glittered pink cowgirl hat to top things off.  And altho sometimes I'm frustrated that my room is camera shy for a reason, a thought occured to me? That mannequin may well one day be a memory for my daugher like my mom's boxes are for me?  So for now, I'm happy to share her.  Mean time seems like some others have had similar ideas for displaying collections.  And altho Velda's (glumpire's)  is certainly the first and best I've seen...these certainly are too worthy of the title glamorama. 

p.s. I think I feel a vanity post coming on....


~ Some other glamorama worthy mannequins ~



The Decorologist finds a great place to put her bling:

Jessica, from Such Pretty Things finds her daughter has inherited her love not only for vintage pins but the art of arrangement as well :)

and finally my not quite glamorama, but definitely mini me mannequin in the making...wish me luck!

lallyhoo, for daddy

there is nobody but nobody here wheedling me
in this blackberry lane growing wildly man-free
with thistles they bristle and bleed fingertip wine
stickly sickly blackberries with nectar divine ~

in here I’m transported back into the garden
the eden of dreams and innocence forgotten
but where there’s berries there’s snakes
grandma mo-mac used to tell me……….
so fear suddenly clouds my thought’s reverie:

I'm re-living the nightmare of old black miss sara;
hunched over just like this, nary a care.
without any warning, the rattler lisped at her face ~
in a death clutch they find them eternally embraced.

miss sara used to make a sweet lallyhoo.
that was Swahili for blackberry stew?
we ate till our smiles trickled tickly sweet
just like bob white quail who’s feast we repeat...till we bloat
after watching their gorge-stained, odd
blue and red throats…….

we miss her and the lallyhoo’s of summer's past time
bitter-sweet thistles and bristles and fingertip wine.
and, so I wish I could take those sneaky bites back?
erase all the sorrow and fear like grandma mo-mac’s.

And now I am hunched here low in this garden
my primeval, bruised, eden far from forgotten
and there’s nobody but nobody here wheedling me
in this blackberry lane growing wildly, finally free.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sylvia Plath's Blackberrying