I spent a blessed half hour on the phone with my Amy this weekend, laying on the bed and gabbing like two teenagers. How I love those phone calls… full of her “doings” in DC, what she’d been seeing and what she’d been doing. There have been cherry blossoms and kite festivals and concerts… and high tea with some of her friends in honor or one’s birthday. And all of them documented in pictures. Amy is developing into quite the photographer, capturing the small things in life and her days that tell stories and posting them on her flickr page. My days are always begun with a visit to that page for they tell me so much about her life and her passions beyond the words that we share in conversation.
This morning was no exception and I was treated to pictures of a group of girls dressed to the nines and all in HATS!!! Big floppy Southern Belle hats! Hats meant to wear when sipping tea with crooked pinkies with huge smiles shining underneath the brims… young woman smiles that hinted at the little girl still lying in all of them and the fun they were having.
In all my years I’ve never been to high tea. In the years that encompassed motherhood and work and surviving, my “high teas” most often consisted of grabbing quick pieces of time with friends (who were also mothers) in between errands and picking up kids for coffee. There wasn’t time to sit down leisurely in our finery and sip tea and be GIRLS!!! My finery most often consisted of jeans and sweatshirts with a ball cap jammed on my head.
Come to think of it…. that’s STILL my finery! 🙂
And then it all came back… I HAVE been to a high tea, albeit a slightly different type. It wasn’t at the Park Hyatt and it wasn’t with a group of twenty-something friends. It was with a group of five year old girls at my childhood home in honor of my birthday. There were real plates and cups, tea (which was probably koolaid), finger sandwiches, cakes and all sorts of goodies.
And there was finery!!! Oh my Lord there was finery! Each girl who attended “dressed up” in their Mom’s clothes. There were hats and high heels and skirts and stoles and purses and gloves. There was even one who wore a bra (albeit it seriously padded and stuffed) and her mom’s girdle!
The pinkies were crooked, the manners were out in full force (as much as 5 year olds can have manners), and the smiles were just as bright and shiny as the ones in Amy’s picture of 47 years later.
Over the years, women have been urged to be strong… to be self sufficient. We’ve had to work our way through what is often considered a “man’s world” though I consider it all of our worlds. With all the changes in our lives over the years, often “being a girl” gets lost in the shuffle.
Sometimes “being a girl” is just what the doctor ordered!!!!