In addition to being a family that "celebrates"-my family is also a family of stuff-or in Mom's words: "collectibles"! Don't get me wrong, Mom has some incredible collectibles that I'm sure are worth quite a lot of money. And then there's...well I'm sure you know the rest of that story. Having my purple truck "Willie Nelson", I was frequently the beneficiary of many of Mom and Dad's collectibles that Willie and I hauled from St. Louis to New Orleans regularly. One trip, we were loaded down with beautiful china planters. We had: two Virgin Marys (which for non-Catholics made me chuckle); a stable of tiny animals that I remembered from my childhood-dogs, cats, pigs; a soldier; swans; china houses; china churches; many china pots and bowls in a variety of sizes and colors; and then there was my smirking, gazing to the sky, china lady in the hat that you see in the photo. Every hurricane threat and/or evacuation order, all my china garden treasures came in to be stored in the laundry room so as not to become catapulting dangers! Before I left in '05, I had put everything in the laundry room so that was one less thing that my Ms. Williams of More had to worry about...just in case.
Imagine how much our china garden pals cheered us up when we came back to the devastation. My lady went back out on the crumbling fence and really had something to smirk about. Some sat on fallen cinder-blocks and others were able to go back to their homes before the storm. Although my Mom loved her china planters, they were not on her list to return to St. Louis with me when I closed Columbus Street down that November of 2006. All of them live with friends and others in New Orleans now, except my smirking china lady who has come to France with me. Unlike Noah, who could take 2 of each with him on the ark...I only allowed myself one (or so) transitional object per category. If you look closely at the tip of my lady's hat, you'll see a tiny piece that broke off when she was voyaging through the mail. She now has a place of honor in the sunshine on a supporting beam at the edge the terrasse roof. I don't have to bring her inside anymore, but from time to time it looks to me like she's looking over her shoulder to her old friends and our old life that used to be New Orleans-Kind of like me!
Last year's place for geraniums in plastic is this year's place for pansies in pitchers and pots. I'll share our smiling pansies with you tomorrow.
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