What I Wish I'd Said

[thisnewday]

She'd posted a picture on LiveJournal of her mother's old sewing machine, in the corner of a room, in the light of a window, with a few other furnishings. And what I wish I'd said was that I liked the picture, the composition of it. The way in which her mother’s old machine so perfectly fit, with the other pieces placed around it.

That I especially liked the color of the wood, the richness of it. That it had a certain warmth and looked comfortably aged, in the way of a pleasant wine. Which is why they worked together in the picture, the sewing machine, the chest of drawers, and the straight back chair.

That afterwards I'd thought about my mother’s old machine and its beautiful cabinet. How it really was so beautifully made, but with a very dark finish, a deep mahogany I think. Which is also a warm color, with its red pigmentation, but intensely dark.

That it then occurred to me that even warm colors, when mixed too dark, may allow the darkness to prevail over their warmth. Which is how I think my mother was.

That is what I wish I'd said, and then apologized for the darkness of it. And said that what I truly think of, after seeing the picture that she'd posted there, is the light coming through the window, by her mother‘s old machine, making the rich wood warm and very much alive…

LPK
LiveJournal
3.5.2012

Comments

[auntysocial.livejournal.com]

that picture evoked my memories of my mother's sewing machine, too. I think about her a lot, but the sewing machine has its own set of memories for me. I ended up using it more than she did.

[olbuksings.livejournal.com]

My mother's was a Singer, bought new in the early 1950s, and you could almost trace the family's history and fortunes through it. It seemed to mark the beginning of a period of upward mobility for my parents and was a great symbol of the way they accomplished it--by investing nearly every hour of nearly every day in one productive enterprise or another.

It was also around that time that they bought their first new home and, after a full day as a manufacturing accountant, my father would come home and work on getting it painted or landscaped or a garden put in or a sandbox built for the kids. It was one of those tract houses and, on any given evening during the summer, you could walk down the street and see all the dads, accountants, engineers, over-the-road sales reps by day, up on ladders leaned against the houses or down in the yard seeding or watering the new lawns.

"Sweat equity" is what they called it then and the whole scene was just so "'fifties." Later on, one of the high school kids down the block had a beefed-up '57 Chevy, all plain and ordinary on the outside but a monster under the hood. (Although you could tell by the fat tires and "Traction Master" struts on the rear that there was something else going on there.)

And the girls my age in those full "poodle skirts" and boufant (spelling?) hair. Yup, it was so 'fifties. And I'm so goshdarned old...

[auntysocial.livejournal.com]

Oh the power of a photograph to bring up memories! I am of that same era. I remember my father mixing up some white paint called Bondex and painting the sides of the house using a roller with extension poles. He planted a seedling magnolia tree which later lived to buckle the sidewalk and interfere with the plumbing. Last time I saw the house, the tree was still there.