Chloe's Style

I’m sitting here at my computer with not one clue as to what I should write about. I have been thinking all morning and hoping it would come to me as it does sometimes. Sometimes I look at the program icon and something begins to come to me and I can hardly get it open and a new page started fast enough. Today I waited. I deleted emails and checked fb which is a huge taboo. I also checked a website for little girl clothes to see what’s trending, and sure enough it’s that one kind of dress which Chloe hates. Chloe has a style she is drawn to and it has nothing to do with trending styles. It has nothing to do with what anyone else is wearing or advertising because she doesn’t get out much. Her style has everything to do with how a dress makes her feel on the inside and who it makes her feel like on the outside. How competent it makes her feel, how bossy, how creative, how studious, how adventurous. She does not want to play princess anymore. I think that was ages three to six. Sometimes she likes to play fancy lady. You know, when a lady gets dressed up for tea. It may involve kid gloves and a bustley dress, a scarf and some baubley necklaces. A tea lady is dressed properly in lady attire and is serving tea to her guests. She speaks with an English accent, in proper English. She brings out the best dishes and tableware. She seats all the stuffed animals around the coffee table. Then there is the pirate, and the adventurer, the farmer and cowgirl, the pioneer woman. All of these must be attired. The time for feeling special and worth saving has changed into the time for hard work, adventure and saving others. We have the archaeologist and the builder. The painter and designer. Her poor Grandmother. Quite a few times lately I’ve had to tell her that Chloe will not wear those kind of dresses and it’s kind of a waste to keep buying them for her. I’m careful to ask if there is a chance she could return them or give them to someone else and that I’m sure they weren’t cheap and I hate to see them wasted. Really I wish she would bring her catalog over here and just let Chloe pick them out. That hasn’t happened yet. I look at the pile of clothes set aside for Good Will and wonder which lucky girl is going to get those brand new, never worn before clothes. It’s not that Chloe is picky. Most of the clothes we have bought her are from Good Will. She falls in love with some of the most unlikely but really cool outfits put together from inexpensive sources. We have the studious, I’m ready for school look which happens a lot lately since we’ve started back to our home school. It’s what helps her to feel the business of school work and getting things done. She changes at 10:00am to go and do chores. Then she changes back to get back to school mode. When school is out for the day she changes again into whatever it is she will be until dinner time. Some days she gets all dressed up for dinner. A velvet dress or lacy with proper shoes. I’m not sure where today’s style for this age group is coming from because I am not in the know about these sort of things. You might say that I have been out of the loop for a few years. I have noticed that the styles for girls this age tend to be toward the suggestive side, as opposed to the imaginative side. Little girls suggesting that they are big girls. Not on purpose but because that is what is available to them. Portraying perhaps an icon in the entertainment industry. I don’t know what girls this age are watching on television. Chloe doesn’t watch television. She doesn’t have much influence from the entertainment industry because we want her to discover who she is without any of that. She has a couple of favorite shows on Netflix but her time on that is limited. We have a movie night which we look forward to each week and generally watch together as a family, with pizza and popcorn. It is also our ice cream night. Usually we are ready for bed so that if the movie ends late we can just brush our teeth and pop into bed. All this being said, Chloe is still quite concerned about style. Chloe’s style. It is a wonderful thing for me as her mother to escort this imaginative and completely free child out in public. I’m thinking ‘oh, dear’ and her father raises his eyebrows as we get into the car. Recently she was a pioneer woman and had to have a bustle. She pulled one skirt after another on under her long dress and tied the belt. She really needed that bustle feel. We looked at her in that way since she also wore a scarf on her head. She was ready to go. We didn’t say anything. She enjoyed herself so much. Often when we are out I see other people respond to her, she brings a warm smile to many a face, especially in the proper lady attire, which includes a large brimmed hat with flowers. Her distance from today’s trends is so great it’s refreshing. Mostly though she just wears a pair of shorts or jeans and a T-shirt, just like any other almost 9 year old. The way clothes make you feel is an important part of growing up and discovering who you are and what you will do. Don’t get me started on foot wear. We’ve got cowboy boots, fancy boots, winter boots, rubber boots, black school girl shoes, silver glittery shoes, running shoes and sneakers. There are all colors of flip-flops and the favorite of all, bare feet.

Elizabeth Williams, daily writing exercise, 1,010 words

Childhood Imagination

I missed two days writing. Saturday and Sunday. I went back to bed both days. I had an allergy which kept me sneezing violently for a whole day and part of the next, even with medicine. I was tired. The days were busy as weekends always are, especially Saturday. We picked beans and processed harvested corn and weeded and mulched the cucumber patch. There was laundry and cleaning to do. I feel as though I’m fighting a cold in my sinuses. The summer weather is not at all like summer weather but more like fall. Cool nights and some days then hot days as well with really high humidity. It’s hard on the sinuses, I suppose. Anyway I went back to bed two days and didn’t write. I missed it though. Stephan our grandson spent the long weekend with us. I loved having him, so did Chloe. Writing first thing in the morning when the sky is gray and the house is quiet is something I’m really coming to enjoy. It makes a huge difference to my day. I start off not having anything to write about and struggle through the first half, but once I get to the end I’m energized and in creative mode. I feel as though I can take on anything. I’ve even been better at cleaning. It’s like the most challenging thing is out of the way so anything else is possible. Once I’ve been doing this for three or four weeks it will be habit. I remember when I lived in town, I ran everyday, or walked briskly. It energized me as well. This is the same kind of thing. After we moved to the country to the outskirts of a new town I was at a loss as to where to run. I didn’t know the neighborhoods nor where the tracks are. I stopped running and walking. It was not a good feeling. I tried to do indoor exercises on indoor machines, but we all know how that turns out. I may try something like that with Chloe when she gets older. We could walk to the nearby housing development where her grandparents live. That could work. But for now I’m developing this habit of writing first thing. The brain is an amazing part of our bodies and is capable of so much if only pushed beyond our comfort level. Inspiration comes with use. You hear of people not being inspired, but now I feel that perhaps it’s because of stagnation. Like a pond with water but no where to go. Oh, what a concept. When a body of water has somewhere to go it freshens itself along the way. It is seeing different things and feeling different things and turning a corner it surprises itself. It has races down hillsides and bounces and splashes and sprays over and around boulders and ripples gracefully over smooth stones. It is happy, alive and full of energy. Always discovering something new. It is even sustaining other beings and giving energy all along it’s way. But a pond with no outlet like our little fish pond, it becomes stagnant and dark. Yes it is mysterious, but not in a lively refreshing way. It grows a thickness and becomes a poison. But water which flows, that water cleans itself and is clear. Our brains are like that. We need to be flowing. Moving along and letting the words flow. Following the contour of the land. Discovery and surprise keeping us alert and the ideas coming simply from the journey. I missed that this weekend. It wasn’t so long that I had to start again. Having Stephan and Chloe, two keenly creative souls whose childishness is still deeply ingrained in their senses. Spending time with them is like an exercise in itself. Have you ever noticed how grownups tend to move toward really, super boring and uncomfortable material. Making art static and uninspired. Children have the ability to twist and turn the ordinary into fantastical memorable events which have no end and no beginning and which include all the emotions in such a way as can be quickly put away and a different one emerges just like that. You are kept on your toes. Wondering what will be next. Enjoying one fantasy after another all while doing absolutely ordinary tasks. Children see the world in a completely different way than we as adults do. Spending time with children can if you have the right understanding about them, give you access into their timeless world. I know that their are adults who want children to become adult as soon as possible. To take on responsibilities and feel the heavy burdens of the life created for them, with no creativity in it. A boring world which adults feel safe in. One in which those adults believe will provide happiness and security for themselves and their children. A world in which children are uncomfortable and in trouble. Or a world in which the child is kept so busy there is very little time for imaginative discovery. A world full of man-made props. Then their are other adults who long to be given passports to the world of childhood fantasy. Who long to be able to open the door in their own minds to enter childhoods paradise. Spending time discovering and blending with free children, who have time to themselves. Time to explore and discover. Begging to be let in and see what’s there. Where will we go today? Who will we meet? What challenges shall we face? Will we borrow time with a strangers imagination or will we be creators of our own worlds. It is not all fun and games in the world of imagination. Sometimes it is very serious and highly unlikely and tragic things happen and it involves all of us in someway or another. Spending time with children is something like a daily writing exercise, where the imagination is encouraged to flow and meant to be taken seriously. If you have the energy and can let go of the reasonable and proper, you just may be allowed to enter.

Elizabeth Williams, daily writing exercise, 1,023 words.