The big thing on Tuesdays is to remember to take the garbage and recycling bins out. Today was a bit different.
It started … well, not differently, but pleasantly … when I awoke to find our big gray cat named Brother asleep, purring happily by my side. He is a sweet boy who usually sleeps at the foot of the bed. A foretelling?
I was looking forward to that morning, anticipating the arrival of our son, who had would be driving in from Rochester to help with some family business. Later that day, our daughter would be picking her father up to go to see “Pretty Woman” in the city. There was enough of yesterday’s Chinese “take out” left to cover the evening’s dinner. The first of three loads of laundry were in the washing machine. It was going to be a good day.
It got better. I went to get my mail.
Let me explain. I have subscribed to a number of publications for different reasons over the years. I was one of the original subscribers to Living, the Martha Stewart magazine with the aspiration of becoming organized enough to emulate Martha’s sweeping success at home keeping. There was this innovative feature called “good things” that demonstrated how to use ideas and objects in creative, useful ways.
In my mind … terrific.
Could I have arcana chickens that lay colored eggs, an orchard with a zillion types of peaches, several houses with what, at one time, had servants’ quarters, etc.? It became abundantly clear that the answer to these questions was no.
Martha went to jail, the magazine limped along and then expired. And then social media sealed the fate of many such magazines, decimating what had been a profitable niche in print journalism. But some did continue and I, being eternally hopeful, continued to add subscriptions to fill in for those that left, enticed by slick ads that promised me personal fulfillment and the ability to continue to reinvent myself with decorating and new clothes.
It took a while, but it became abundantly clear that I was not in the group of people to whom these journals were targeted. I mean, I don’t know anyone who goes away for a weekend packing a pair of jeans that cost more than my first car and some hand lotion that has to be imported. Recipes called for ingredients and equipment that I consider to be exotic and not readily available. What is Za’atar anyway? And I don’t know anyone who would redo their living room by wallpapering the ceiling with a zebra print. My taste and that of the editors – were definitely not the same. And then there are the country-focused magazines that are no more country than Times Square is Navarino. In these publications city dwellers who are mostly antique dealers or decorators have a weekend house of more than 3,000 square feet with furnishings that have all been found on antiquing trips through some mountain villages in France. Tell me who takes care of the city and the country houses?
And a pox on magazines that use impossibly-young ultra-wealthy entertainment personalities to tell us about the things we should aspire to be or own. A pox! Since I can’t enforce that, I simply unsubscribed – my version of “poxing.”
So…with this in background in mind … what was so special about the mail? Woman’s Day magazine and the Bas Bleu catalog were in the mailbox. I have read Woman’s Day since I was a teen. It was the only magazine in our house, bought by my mother when she went grocery shopping. Its articles are real, relating to ordinary folk. You can actually do what is described on its pages without taking out a loan or travelling to places where you need injections and don’t speak the language. Sure, it’s not a sophisticated exploration of cutting-edge decorating, gastronomy or organizing, but so what. That is what I find charming.
And Bas Bleu? Oh, my! I am all for rejecting the accumulation of stuff except for books, and Bas Bleu is a catalog that will inveigle me into adding to my collection of books that are still unread. It is, in my mind, a Sunday afternoon before Christmas dreaming with the Sears catalog when I was a child. List and descriptions of titles, mostly from across the pond, British, and lately about WWII or nature, quirky books about ideas or information, a veritable treasure hunt for the unusual that is so very ordinary. There are puzzles and gifts for children on its pages, pages which are laid out in so pleasant a way that I find my time just reading it, a delight, a real delight.
So, between remembering the trash cans and everything else that was good on Tuesday, I found the time for delight, and that is a good thing (to quote Martha.)
