Poem - Yellow

I am YELLOW
like the feathers of a Canary.

YELLOW flies high
to the sky
and soars on the dancing winds,
landing in the branches
of sweet smelling trees.

YELLOW sings a song
of joy so beautiful,
you cry with the pleasure of it.

I am YELLOW
so happy to open my heart,
and let my YELLOW sunbeams
warm the earth with love.

I am YELLOW,
shiny and golden,
sparkly and shimmery,
lemony and tangy,
juicy, luscious YELLOW.

Poem and Digital Art by Elizabeth Munroz

Valentine Gift Turnaround

My mother worked in the Jenss store at Pine Plaza in the lingerie department. She had special training how to measure for brassieres, corsets and girdles.

It was complicated back then.

One Valentine's week, a man came in and bought a beautiful black negligee for his wife. Mom thought that was so romantic. A week later, the woman returned it, saying she wanted the money instead. The store was obliged to accept her return.

I recall how angry Mom was about the return. She felt sorry for the man who cared so much as to embarrass himself by showing up there to ask for help to buy it. Seldom would a man be seen in this private section of the store in those days. She thought the woman was ungrateful and selfish.

Luckily for her that Mom (or Dad?) was able to purchase it for a very reduced amount. She had it for many years. The last time I saw it was about 1983. I think.

It wasn't some sleazy thing. It was more like what you would see Doris Day wearing in a movie. what comes to mind is "Pillow Talk" with Rock Hudson.

A respectable but pretty lacy nightgown underneath and a peignoir over it. It completely went from neck to wrist and floor. I don't think it was made of silk, but some other silky material. Chiffon, maybe. It had a zillion thin pleats. Parts of it had black lace that was backed by another kind of silky fabric to keep the lady wearing it looking demure, but alluring.

I don't think they make such beautiful things like that anymore. Probably because women like me, being practical and wanting to stay warm, would rather wear sweats to bed.

Oh, I know there are still romantics out there with a penchant for Victoria's Secret and maybe something a lot more racy. But I would be surprised if they would find the class and quality this peignor set had.

I found this pic on the internet, but this is way more revealing than the one Mom had. You will notice that under the nightgown part is another layer of fabric to keep you from actually seeing the body. Perhaps a man had to use his imagination rather than leaving nothing to imagination as it is today.

It's Mom's Birthday

Today is my mother's birthday. She would have been 89. She led a good life, a hard life. She had such a lovely name, Genevieve.

Her early memories were of living in the lumber camps, where Papa's work was still necessary, a blacksmith when it was a dying art. Her mother worked as cook and washerwoman for the lumber company. Their home, less a home than we can imagine, with a shed-porch where she and her brother slept and woke up to snow on the bed, because of the open slats holding up the roof.

She didn't think it was a hard life then. She just thought that was the way life was.

In a way, she worked for the lumber camp herself, setting the long tables with plates and eating utensils. Putting syrup, molasses, salt and home made jams in the center for the pancakes while her mother cooked up the big pans of bacon and eggs fried in their grease.

Once the lumbering dried out, no more trees to cut, you see. They went to live in the house of a relative who took them in. Papa tried to run his smithy there on that Crooked Creeak Road out "in the sticks", as she called it. Papa died when she was nine, at the beginning of the fall of the stock market and the Depression. It made no difference in their lives. They were already poor.

So she could find work as a housekeeper, mother sent her off to live with her older, married sister.

A year later she was brought home to live with Mother and her new Step-Dad.  Suddenly, the poverty was not so oppressive as her mother continued to work in a diner as a cook. Her pies the prize of the county.

Those are just some facts about my Mom's childhood, shared for no particular reason except today is my mother's birthday and these things have come to mind.

The first photo is my mother as an infant with her mother and aunt, and work horse.

Second photo was taken the year Papa died.

The third photo was taken when Genevieve was 14, when times were better.

Creating a Character

Virginia sat in the car staring out over the cliff, seagulls dipping back and forth on the breeze. She took the rest of her sandwich, broke it into pieces, and began throwing them out the window one piece at a time.

Soon gulls squawked and dive bombed her car. Virginia quickly threw out the rest, and when the fighting started, she raised the window and numbly watched, not able to look away. Her intent to do a kindness, to feed some hungry birds had turned into a violent free-for-all as the bigger birds pecked at the smaller ones taking the food right out of their beaks.

Virginia was sorry she came out here. Sorry to see the gray waves sloppily sloshing the shore. It reminded her so much of herself, gray waves. Not even waves, just gray. Grey like the dreams that didn't make sense. Virginia didn't just feel gray, she was the essence of gray, like the heavy fog beginning to creep toward the cliff. She felt like she could dissipate and seep right into it, like dust swept into air. Except she didn't have the energy to move. Just sit and stare and be nowhere.

Virginia knew she was depressed. She had been here many times before. Despondency her old friend/old foe never went too far away, always lurking in the background of her life somewhere. "That's the way it is when you've got brain chemicals out of whack." she said to the last departing seagull.

The oddest things triggered her mood swings. It wasn't anything that Paul said. He could say the same exact thing ten days ago and it wouldn't pierce her heart, draining all the blood of her self-esteem away. No. It wasn't what Paul said. It was the brain chemicals.

Change Your Name to Avoid Dying

When I originally changed my name to Elizabeth, I chose it because when I looked up the meaning it said Elisheba meant a covenant between God and humanity, I thought that was appropriate because I often felt that I survived chondrosarcoma because of what I believed was a promise from God with me.

I met a woman from Israel when I was facing my seventh bone cancer surgery. I was so discouraged. I had serious concerns about whether I would live or die, which I shared in a counseling group. The woman came up to me after the meeting, and told me that where she comes from there is a belief that if you change your name, the "Angel of Death" cannot find you.

So, after surviving the surgery, that was when I took her words to heart and made the decision to change my name.

I knew what name I wanted. Every time I was pregnant, I always wanted to name my girl babies, Elizabeth. But my husband always said no. Those were the days when women had to do what their husbands said. Back then, I didn't know the underlying meaning of the name, but as years went by, I learned. And so, I became Elizabeth.

So, who knows? What's in a name. Huh?