here we go libby lu

All good things come to an end.

I could have seen this coming with the first mention of the word “recession”, but it is over: Libby Lu has closed. My daughters are crushed, and as much as I tried to avoid the pink and purple sparkles when the store first opened, I am a little crushed, too.

It was easy to dismiss a place like Libby Lu. It seemed to stand for everything I never wanted for my girls. Hannah Montana and High School Musical dominated the merchandise at the entrance to the store. In the air, fairy dust and perfume clouded the judgment of the most rational human beings, putting a bit too much emphasis on appearance, and not on personal worth. Or so I thought.

Disney’s overbearing princess presence repelled me from the door as the powerful magnetic girl field attracted my daughters. The merchandise was over-priced, over-blown, and over-pink, and my girls could spend hours just looking at glitter, even if we rarely bought a thing.

One day, the Girl Scouts started popping up in the store. I was even more surprised at the involvement with St. Jude’s Children’s Research Center. These affiliations sometimes made me cringe, sort of the inverse of seeing a soda pop vending machine in an elementary school. Still, the association was curious. It was not what convinced me that Libby Lu was not so bad, though.

No, what made me love Libby Lu was Thursdays. For the past three and a half years, Thursday has been the day that we women of the family do something special, without men. The divorce agreement set things up this way, and so they remain. At first it was piano lesson day. Then, when the piano was taken, we simply spent time together. After a while, though, it became clear that certain activities are best done when men are not present. This is the stuff of Sephora and Julia Child, of tea rooms and clothes shopping. It is stereotypical girl talk on so many levels, and in so many ways I despise it.

They like to chat about the dresses they will wear tonight,
they chew the fat about their tresses and the neighbor`s fight.
Inconsequential things that men don`t really care to know
become essential things that women find so `appropo`.
But that`s a dame, they`re all the same.
It`s just a game, they call girl talk, girl talk.
(“Girl Talk” by Bobby Troup)

I despise the thought of my daughters being reduced to a stereotype, defined by the merchandise available in an irresistible store. Why don’t these girls read a book? write a book? follow their own dreams somewhere beyond becoming a pop star?

Perhaps they already do.

I do. And still, I love being a woman. I look forward to my bubble bath, with perfume, with flowers and pretty things for my hair, with pink perhaps, or red since I am grown-up now. I find myself looking for the glamour in the everyday, for the lace underneath and the soft on top.

Still, if glitter and pouf were all that Libby Lu had to offer, the shine would have worn off long ago. We rarely bought anything in Libby Lu, but we were never discouraged from spending our time spinning wheels and running fingers through feather boas. The same faces greeted my daughters, with smiles and patience.

My daughters discovered news of the end on the company’s website, unceremoniously. That Wednesday evening, they made a card, saying that they would miss the women there. Thursday, we went there, as we always did. As they picked out a final extravagance among the discounted Spa Sparkle merchandise, the manager asked the girls what they would choose, if they could have anything they wanted. Anything. They filled bottles with shampoo of all colors, lotion with glitter, brushes and curlers. As the manager wrapped up the packages, and handed them to the girls, tears streamed down her face. The girls counted through their last few dollars, looking to me to make up the difference. The manager left the counter. We waited to pay, forever, and finally a clerk came to the front. She said there was no charge. I asked again. She checked. No charge.

My girls were happy, of course. No. Elated. But they never really realized, I don’t think, how their small expression must have meant so much to one person on that day. I could only imagine myself, what details we had never known beyond the bubble gum and tiaras.

This home of glitter is gone now, closed, dark. It does make me sad to wonder what became of all the women who worked there, whether they are happy now, whether they could even find new jobs.

But fairy dust is magic, too, you know. In carpets, hair, clothes, the stuff gets everywhere, appearing years later where you least expect it. And magic fairy dust inspires great things, apparently, in sharing, in the small but great kindnesses that reach far beyond glamour and appearances, right to the heart of things. It is the magic of moments when we show that we care, of the small moments that matter most in our lives.

peonies

A couple of weeks ago, I was at Trader Joe’s to replenish our supply of milk, cereal, and honey-roasted peanuts, when I saw them peeking out between the bouquets of holly and pine branches, white roses, ivy, mistletoe, and poinsettias: peonies!—pale pink, tightly closed, and remarkably out of season.

I looked at the price, nine dollars, picked out the nicest bunch, and put them in my basket. It was a little splurge, just for me, something to brighten my home, which would be quiet for several days. I looked again at the bouquet. A few of the outer leaves were already brown and curled on the edges. The leaves were pretty tired looking.

I put the flowers back, and walked across the aisle to grab a box of Joe’s Os.

The New Year is upon us, and as we are all wont to do as December ends, I am pondering my existence and what I can do to make it—me—better. Many articles are published on this subject every year about this time, right next to the lists of famous people who have died, and the countdowns of top songs.

It must also be a big time for self-help book sales. You know those books you see—especially if you are a woman—that tell you about taking care of yourself and doing nice things just for you, because you are so overwhelmed by taking care of everyone else and really deserve to have a week in a spa, a personal shopper and a nice meal cooked by someone else?… Oprah often reminds us that self-pampering is nice, and one particular bit of advice I have tried taking from her from time to time is to stop waiting for a man to send me flowers and just buy them myself.

Well, after years of buying my own flowers, I have to say that this advice is crap.

Now, that is not the only reason that I put back the peonies at Trader Joe’s. In fact, I do love peonies, and I’ve grown them when I’ve had gardens. When I’m lucky, they bloom around my birthday, and then, I do buy them for myself. The screen in my bedroom has them all over, off-white, pink, even yellow, and most beautiful, deep red ones, signs of prosperity and good luck, love, healing. Some fairly convincing fake peonies sit stylishly in a long rectangular vase on the floor in my hall. Open my front door. There, at the bottom of the stairs—those are peonies, too. Sure, I would love to have real ones, and this time of year—what a treat that would be! But not like this.

Rarity does not equal beauty. And just because the supply goes down doesn’t mean my demand goes up. It just means that I wait for the right time, unless they are something truly special. Now, it may be true that these particular flowers would have released their perfume and charm when they opened, but it just didn’t seem likely. In fact, what I saw when I looked at them just made me sad: supermarket flowers to feed the commercial interests that mark the season. Not even a Chinese empress could force these flowers to bloom in winter. Why should I?

To every thing there is a season…

And then, there is the other factor… the part about Oprah’s questionable advice.

I do believe that waiting around for someone else to make your life for you is a really bad idea. Live, live for yourself, just live! Yes, I do believe that. I do, and I fill it with the things that mean a lot to me, and I do want to be better, and do more. But buying my own peonies?

Really, all those times I went ahead and filled my vases with beautiful flowers I bought for myself, I really did wish that I had someone to thank them for, someone, someone who knew me well enough to know the thing about the peonies, someone who cared enough to waste the money on something beautiful that is already dying, something fleeting, something frivolous, something totally and utterly impractical… for absolutely no reason at all. Buying peonies for myself just makes me wish I had not been the one to buy them, and wishing that does not make me feel pampered.

So, a garden I may grow, but I will no longer buy my own flowers. That is my resolution for this year. Telling myself that the flowers themselves are all I ever wanted… that just cannot be all there is to hope for. But dreams are not so bad, and I will not stop dreaming. That is my other resolution.

Ah, it is the end of this year, the beginning of new days, new dreams, new songs. To all of you, both the dreamers and you more practical and level-headed sorts, I wish you all the beautiful gifts of the year that follows.