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April 19, 1998
Thursday, I took the day off.
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...Well, sort of.
After a quick run downtown to look at some proofs
of my fine art prints, which are scheduled to be shipped out to
California next week, I rushed home to spend the day with my daughter
and her best friend to go shopping.
Katie's Confirmation, 8th grade graduation, National
Honor Society Induction, Spring Festival (note bragging mother
here!) and Jenny's Bat Mitzvah are all just around the corner
and Katie's wardrobe consists only of jodhpurs, chaps, riding
boots, platform shoes and elephant pants, once known in the middle
ages, as bell bottoms.
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Jenny
and Katie, summer 1996 © Susan B. Markisz
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Katie,
3, gets a birthday present from Auntie Boo © 1987 Susan
B. Markisz
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The last time I bought her a dress, I oohed and
aahed at the velvet and crinolines and had my pick of dresses
without comment from the peanut gallery. That was ages ago.
At 13, Jenny got to go into the dressing room with
my daughter, while I was relegated to sit on a stool just outside
the door. Aside from the chauffeuring and the proffering of financial
assistance, clearly I was to have little influence in the choosing
of new garments, meant not to impress mom, but to impress the
new "others" in my daughter's life.
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At one point, I thought we might have a winner. But the
two emerged only to say they had exhausted all the possibilities of
the hundreds of dresses that the store offered.
Meanwhile, in an adjacent dressing room, another daughter
spoke through the closed door to her mother, similarly castigated. I
heard her say: "Oh mom, I HATE this dress. There's a BULGE." The mother
and I exchanged glances as we simultaneously laughed and commiserated
about the many bulges that were destined to appear before long.
After much frustration, I threatened to go home with my
toys (read credit cards and wheels) but then to be a sport, I suggested
they might try a few stores on their own, while I immersed myself in
a record store, emerging with what could be considered a binge: 8 CD's
(Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Ani DiFranco, October Project, Dar Williams,
Mercedes Sosa, Gipsy Kings and Richard Shindell); don't ask...my tastes
are eclectic, if not completely enigmatic.
A little while later I found my girls in a nearby dress
shop, one not normally frequented for everyday clothes. In the dressing
room were two young teenagers with little black dresses, a far cry from
the Laura Ashley frocks of childhood. I was suddenly looking at stunning
young women, whose very being exuded beauty and perfection, silliness
and sultry, all at once.
| That I did not have my camera to record these moments, seems a
shame on the face of it. But in my mind's eye, I will always see
and hear two little girls, wearing wide pants and 3 inch platform
shoes, t-shirts and pea coats, giggling in the back of the car,
mimicking lines from once loved "Baby-sitter Club" movies, now reciting
in unison word for word, lines from their favorites, "Imagine you're
a deeuh, you're prancin' along, ya get thirsty, spot a little brook,
ya put your little deeuh lips down to the cool cleah watah...and
BAM..."("My Cousin Vinnie"); and "Me and Jenny, we were like peas
and carrots again" ("Forrest Gump"), ... oh yes, and talking about
Leo, AKA Leonardo DiCaprio, who still has not r.s.v.p.'d to Jenny's
Bat Mitzvah, by the way... and coming home with dresses that belie
a current reality. |
Katie,
4 1/2 years old, in Easter finery © 1989 Susan B. Markisz
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Susan B. Markisz
April 19, 1998
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