Remembering the Stories

I used to love coats.  I felt so sophisticated wearing a wool coat.  I wore a black pea coat and a red swing coat.  This was back when I wore the black opaque pantyhose.  I made it work with boots or with black high heels.  Do I even own a pair of heels anymore?  I used to wear slips.  Decent girls wore camisoles and half slips.  I have one still.  So, I wore my dress with slip and pantyhose.  I wore heels and blouses with a scarf tie in the front.  I would have to iron all of the creases.  My friends always asked why I dressed like an old lady or a teacher.  I wore buttons on my ears.  I wore pearl buttons with rhinestones around them.  I hated to lose a rhinestone. 

I grew up on red lip liner and British Red Coat red by L'Oreal.  I would buy black and royal blue eye liner from the Chinese store and melt the tips with a lighter to wear on the lower water line.  Mascara?  I didn't wear mascara until I was in my late twenties.  I wore Charlie perfume both the blue and then later the white.  I favored this pearl iridescent nail polish sold by the illustrious Wet N Wild.  When I was 16 years old, I got the perfume, Beautiful.  I didn't know I could smell so well. 

Hair was weird.  Curly hair didn't have product back then.  Studio Line Gel was the gel of choice.  I wore Aussie Hair Spray because it smelled like grapes.  The bigger the hair the better but I preferred it tamer.  This was before hot irons.  I had to have a roll brush and dry it out little by little.  On a bad day it would be super frizzy.  It's easier these days with no humidity. 

I'm thinking about the little things that were so important then.  These are the things that I will remember when I'm old.  These snippets of nostalgia that stay with you as you contemplate any new changes.  You look at who you were.  You look at all of the dumb things you did.  I'll tell you what led to this contemplation.  I thought about New York City.  The gritty New York of a long time ago and walking the streets of Manhattan at night in pantyhose and a red swing coat feeling magic in the air.  As I remember, I feel the stories well up within me.  I have stories to tell.  I wish I could tell myself back then as I chased the cold night breeze for purpose. I would have told that girl, "You are a story teller.  Pay attention.  Live, laugh and love as hard as you can because you, My Love, have stories to tell and I will rely on you to remember."