Portraits of a Time
On January 1, 2011, I’m sure I was not the only one grumbling and struggling to put away the things of 2010, clear away unneeded things, and get clear spaces for the year ahead. A sticking point for me has been this big, clunky plastic bin in my laundry room. It’s been in my way for over a year, my husband has complained about it, but every time I’ve tried to get rid of it I am stumped by the decision-making required, and quickly give up.
The bin mostly contains keepsakes and photos that belonged to my mother. She died in October 2006 at 89 years of age. I should say she lived a good long life and was loved. She absolutely was, but after all this time I still struggle with letting go, and particulary of pictures. Even duplicates — it feels like some kind of sacrilege to destroy them or throw them out, so back into the bin they go. One of the things I thought a lot about this time, though, was her portraits.
Portrait of my mother, Virginia
It seems odd to me that she frequently went to photographers’ studios and had portraits made of herself– the high-quality 8 x 10s like you’d have done for a graduation or wedding. She was a beautiful woman and we have several of them throughout her life — in fact my sister had one of them enlarged and framed for my Christmas present this year, one of the early ones probably from before she had kids.
But most people don’t have portraits made of themselves, do they? Families, yes, but self portraits? Usually you just go with whatever snapshots come out of family events or vacations. Why would she do that? I think now it is because she was a mother of the 1950s. In the 1940s, she was young and beautiful, she had left her family’s farm in Iowa to become a stenographer for a senator in Washington D.C. She wore classy suits and stylish hats, three-inch heels and silk stockings. She was popular in her group of friends and during the war years married a USO performer. When the marriage failed she moved to Miami, got a divorce, and was soon pursued by my father, a determined, up-and-coming businessman who was tall, dark and handsome. They married, and she must have been filled with excitement for what her life would become. But instead of expanding, her life contracted.
In the 1950s, as we know, women married, had kids, and their public lives were over except where the kids were concerned. They began to disappear, in deference to their children and their husband’s career. I wonder, did my mother have those portraits made to remind herself that she did indeed exist, that her beauty endured, that she had value inspite of what her life had become?
Women have come so far since my mother’s life, and I am so grateful to our tenacious warriors who made that happen, and I am horrified by women who say they want to be a stay-at-home mom while their husbands are the breadwinners. Are they crazy? Don’t they remember? No, they do not. But in many cases, it turns out the opposite: More men are staying at home to handle the childcare while the women pursue their careers.
I’m far afield now of where I probably need to go with this post, and that is my own ability as an adult child of a stay-at-home mom, to release her to what is next for her, to release myself from the pieces of paper that bear her image. I’ll keep the best of the portraits, hold her dear in my memory, understand her more more clearly, but try not be encumbered by the struggles of her past.
Oh, and, get rid of the bin. I did manage to toss some stuff — now I just have a smaller bin!
