Not my vest, but still my beloved purple.
From a year ago:
The Purple Lady was the kind of famous only crazy people get to be. I’d look for signs of her as we neared my grandparents’ town — electric poles painted purple as high as she could reach. I never saw her, and in those days I didn’t think she was crazy. Purple was my favorite color, too, and those electric poles, those purple beacons in the fields were my signal we were nearing Portsmouth, even before our fox-colored dog Hexe pressed her nose against the vents, inhaling deeply and whining, smelling we were close.
Purple had been my favorite color since I was old enough to pick one. After my declaration, my sister knitted me a soft, fuzzy vest with thick bands of purple and pink. Oh, I loved that vest, for the purple and for the person who knitted it. And I wore that vest often during the days we lived in the gray house by the creek in Germany, and I wore it when we visited my grandparents in the States. And when my grandmother took me to have my picture taken, I refused her beautiful, smocked dresses. I wanted only my vest.
Somewhere along the line, I learned to appreciate other colors. As I grew, and especially as a teenager and then an adult, I claimed I didn’t have a favorite color. But when my first child was old enough to pick a favorite color herself and she chose pink, I was slightly horrified, both at the princess connotations and at the lack of purpleness. And so I reclaimed purple. Slowly. I began telling her purple had been my favorite color. She started telling people purple is her mama’s favorite color. I started to wear more purple shirts, when I had to replace my ten-year-old sneakers, I bought ones with purple trim, and when I had to pick a cover for the new futon, I chose purple.
This afternoon, I sat with my daughter, who will be eight in just a few much-too-short months. I sat with her and talked to her about the many disappointments of her day — a very sick cat needing medical attention meant we missed our Waldorf co-op, a playdate was at first delayed and then canceled, our afternoon activity postponed and then her almost five-year-old brother, having performed the dance she choreographed and sung his parts in their show, didn’t want to practice more. There were tears of anger and frustration over too many disappointments. And I found myself explaining to her why we’d missed all the fun today, about how we stop everything in this family when someone is suffering, and we give them what they need, and she understood. And so I told her a little bit about my disappointments, too, and that I felt sad about not being able to come on our big camping trip with friends since I have to stay home to take care of our sick cat. How I wouldn’t be with them on Mother’s Day, and how I would be okay, our cat needed me, but that it was okay to be disappointed and sad anyway.
And suddenly, her tears stopped. And she asked excitedly, “Mama, could I borrow some of your felt?” and moments later came back in and asked for thread. Purple thread. And I knew what it meant even before she banned me from her room for the rest of the afternoon. And my tears were not tears of disappointment over the camping trip or worry over the cat or even sleep deprivation from the emergency vet visit in the middle of the night. My tears were tears of pride and gratitude for this little child of mine and whatever it is she is doing with purple felt and thread in there, pushing aside her own disappointment so readily to show compassion for her mama.
Tonight, we went to to see a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream outside at a park. My sweet girl was enthralled. Her little brothers were amazing, but didn’t quite make it to the end, and after we had our fill of shushing and redirecting and running around in the dark off to the side of the audience, we said it was time to go. And she cried, and flitted back towards the crowd again and again as we left, tempted to disappear into the dark mass and stay there until she’d seen the end. And it wasn’t fair, not after all her disappointment, so after we got her brothers in the car, I decided this girl of mine needed a little compassion herself, and together we ran over to the fence and found a spot we could see through the bushes, and she giggled as she climbed the fence to peer at the stage and watch the last few minutes of the performance. And she was happy and held my hand and laughed on the way back to the car. And I have to remind myself, sometimes we all need a little purple thread and felt in our lives. And I thought of the purple lady and the joy I felt seeing those purple poles, and now I wonder why I ever started to think she was crazy at all.
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