I'm not sure if it's because they originated in London and I'm an anglophile, or because I'm really an 83-year old woman at heart, but good golly-golly I love me a doily. I have a light green linen one that I bought in Scotland for under $10 dollars about ten years ago, and it's one of my favorite decorative items.
Today Friend A came over and gave me my birthday present -- a paper-doily maker.
I can't begin to explain the world that has been opened up for the kids and me. We have all taken turns fondling it with stars in our eyes, and The Girl happily went through a stack of paper this evening chomping her way around the edges until she had a stack of perfect doilies.
Friend A also treated me to beautiful paper to create beautiful doilies. We went to New York Central Art Supply while The Sister stayed with the kids and orchestrated the knitting lesson, and piano practice, etc. Standing in the paper section on the second floor, I looked around the shop and realized that it surely has not changed much in the past few decades. For a second -- a rich, plush second -- I felt connected to the unique energy that makes New York New York -- that frenzied/joyful/full/finally-getting-what-life-is-about feeling that I used to get when I was quite young and exploring the city by myself. Then I moved here with two babies... and the love affair between the city and me mellowed (the way most love affairs do after two babies). There was connectedness and familiarity and compromise -- all good, representative characteristics of a mature and enduring relationship, but I no longer had an endorphin perma-high. In the midst of the laundry, and groceries, and school auctions, and soccer clinics, and ballet lessons, and post office schlepps, I had become New York City's worn out, stay-at-home grey wife. I've known it for a while, but assumed that it was the natural order of things that had to be accepted. But today, standing in an authentic, not-chain, not-pastic establishment, surrounded by fine art materials, and with a doily maker waiting at home, I thought: it's still here for the taking. It's time to put on the bunny negligee and get some spice back into this relationship. And it's going to happen by being creative, by going to great little places, by showing the kids -- no longer babies -- what NYC has to offer. And I'm sorry that I just pushed my metaphor towards a bunny negligee while talking about my kids -- that's going to be some therapy some day if they read this... Point being: I got a doily maker, and that led to the art store, and that led to being reminded of that spark of creativity that NYC is so good about lighting... and I want my kids to feel it. And I'm really happy that the scheme provides time to do more art and to go on more field trips around the city, and I need to not neglect that responsibility.
