About Me

Woman, reader, writer, wife, mother of two sons, sister, daughter, aunt, friend, state university professor, historian, Midwesterner by birth but marooned in the South, Chicago Cubs fan, Anglophile, devotee of Bruce Springsteen and the 10th Doctor Who, lover of chocolate and marzipan, registered Democrat, practicing Christian (must practice--can't quite get the hang of it)--and menopausal.
Names have been changed to protect the teenagers. As if.

Friday, February 22, 2013

Cashmere

Home from work on a Friday. I kick off my boots, take off my belt, pour a glass of wine. It's chilly in the house so I reach up in my closet for my 15-year-old shabby sweatshirt. . . but then I pause; my hand hovers--and I pull down my cashmere shawl. Or scarf. It works both ways. It's richly colored and feather-light and miraculously warm and threaded with the love of the friend who carried it all the way from India to England and across the Atlantic to me.

In the sweatshirt, I schlepp. In the shawl, I swan.

In the sweatshirt, I collapse on the couch in a heap, suck down my wine, and look around wildly for potato chips. In the shawl, I lounge elegantly on the sofa. I sip. I bite delicately into the occasional stuffed olive.

But then, swanning from living room back to kitchen (need more olives), I am suddenly overcome with ambition. I aspire not simply to swan  but to float regally and beneficently, to. . . to. . .to waft, dammit! I want to be one of those wafting women whose shoes always finish off their outfits, who remember everyone's names, who never burst out into shrieking laughter at inappropriate moments.

Oh hell.

I will never waft.

I see that. I accept that.

But for far too long I have squandered my days in schlepping. And I now possess a kick-ass, genuine-article, love-laden cashmere scarf. With said scarf artfully draped about me,  I will swan through my second half-century. It's a promise.

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