Friday- April 30, 2021

Dear Marion,

  I want to share a topic with you, it’s this thought of something being perfectly imperfect. As I took my walks this week I found myself drawn to flowers and objects that were not pretty in a traditional way. Either a flower had blown off of its branch and was partially crushed or weeds growing along the river bank that was coated in cherry blossom petals. There was a certain beauty in the image. So often we work hard to make something perfect or at least appear to be the ideal. We look at recipes that have been plated like a piece of perfection. Sometimes a plate of chocolate chip cookies half-eaten grabs my interest more than the perfectly plated pile of the same cookies. Maybe it’s the story that is left for you to ponder. We seem as a society to have consumed ourselves with the perfectly polished. It hasn’t happened overnight, it’s been developing over time. Sometimes it’s subtle and sometimes very obvious.

  I watched an interview not long ago with Justine Bateman as she had just written a new book called Face. I have been reading a bit here and there which is easy because each chapter is short and involves a different subject and character. While the stories are fictional they are based on different interviews Justine Bateman has conducted with the names changed, their age listed, and often stating their profession or title. It reminded me of the many times we discussed the expectations of women at different stages in their lives. How many times did I dramatically state how unfair society can be to our women of all ages(remember my dramatics began well before my twenties). I can remember at a young age exclaiming why are aging men with facial lines and silver hair declared distinguished and women with lines and silver hair “old”?! It’s simply not fair. If I had a nickel for every time I said,” ‘such and such’ isn’t fair”... and you responded,” life isn’t fair”, we could pay your grandchildren’s college education.             

  My first corporate job was exciting and yet disappointing to me in that everyone in the design and editorial department was under the age of 30 including the president of the company. The owner and a handful of others were older but I did not have much contact with them. I remember coming home and climbing on my soapbox to all who would listen to how wrong it felt and uninteresting. There was one gentleman who worked in production(he was the same age as dad) and I loved when I had an opportunity to speak to him. He had so much knowledge and I wanted to soak it up. Fashion by nature is a young person’s field and I knew that but I so enjoyed my next opportunity because there were seasoned professionals that could share their experiences with me and it created a more rounded environment. 

 As I was growing up, I remember never wanting my clothes to be exactly the same fabric, meaning they matched. Something about wearing it together made me uncomfortable. As I grew into a teen, I didn’t like my hair being perfectly styled. I liked it to be a little off or slightly messy. It was the eighties, between hairspray and razor-cut styling that wasn’t too hard to achieve especially on the Jersey shore. My natural appearance was fair, somewhat ordinary so I looked overdone with the trending 80’s makeup but that didn’t stop me from experimenting. Instead of looking dramatic, the makeup glaringly sat on my face appearing more comical than dramatic as was my intent. As the years moved along, I accepted my less exotic, more wholesome features and embraced my naturally stick straight hair(there had been many a perm and most of them executed by none other than you) trying my best to find my individual style. I soaked up the icons that I thought aged gracefully(and didn’t seem to be ignored) in my then young eyes: Lauren Hutton, Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall, Jane Fonda, Cher, and later Iman, Diane Keaton, Helen Mirren, etc. Your granddaughter has recently taken to the movie First Wives Club made in 1996 starring Diane Keaton, Goldie Hawn, and Bette Midler. It is hilarious and shows how strong women can be and how we can create our own stories regardless of society’s expectations. We need to give our young women and girls options and visuals of another kind of beauty. Wisdom, strength, creativity, and clever minds don’t have to be wrapped up in one kind of (wrinkle-free) pretty packaging to be credible. 

  Last week Tyler Perry was honored with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award during the Oscars and he gave one of the most incredible speeches. He spoke of meeting in the middle and above all removing hate from your dialogue as a way to move forward and heal. If I hadn’t been a fan, I certainly would have become one listening to him speak. He is a man who has overcome and not only survived some extremely difficult circumstances growing up but thrived and cultivated an incredibly empathetic spirit. In my eyes, at that moment, his beautiful spirit brought me tears of appreciation. Tyler Perry has created a well-rounded life that has given opportunities to many individuals and communities while filling the world with love and rejecting the idea of hate, completely removing it from his script. What a beautiful world.

  This week we discovered a new recipe, Chocolate Cupcakes. They were so delicious they were half eaten before there was an opportunity to ice them. Flavor and texture a cross between brownies, cupcakes, and cookies perfectly delicious without icing. Perfectly Imperfect Chocolate Cupcakes.

Quote:

“A sense of freedom is something that, happily, comes with age and life experience.”

Diane Keaton

American actress, filmmaker, mother

Born 1946