On Sep 13, 2005, at 3:25, Alice Howell wrote:
Sorry, Tamara, but Red Hatters wear ***red*** hats.
Yes, so I have been now informed. The following should have - probably - gone on to chat, since it no longer has any connection to lace, however tenuous, being a musing. But...
The Red Hatters (women over 55) take their direction from a poem by Jenny Joseph:
When I am an old woman I shall wear purple, With a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves. And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter. I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired. And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells. And run my stick along public railings. And make up for the sobriety of my youth. I shall go out in my slippers in the rain. And pick flowers in other people's gardens. And learn to spit... But, maybe I ought to practice a little now? So people who know me are not too shocked or surprised when suddenly I am old and start to wear purple.
I've always understood this poem to mean that, one day, the speaker will assert herself. As a Queen (wearing purple, the royal colour) of - at least - herself... She'll throw off all constraints of what's "expected"; she will do what she wants, when she wants.
I never was quite certain why she should want to wait till she's old ("practice a little now" seems a bit tame and unrealistic, given that one has less energy for breaking barriers as one grows older)... And I never could understand why, *voluntarily*, she would want to wear colours that didn't suit her; I don't dress to meet other people's expectations of me, but neither do I wear an outfit - even if I'd bought it in a moment of abberation - in which I look (IMO) like a dog's dinner. But, if it's her way of saying "no more of obeying the rules", who am I to object - it's *her choice*.
However... To wear a red hat, with a purple band (to match the purple clothes) as a *required uniform*, seems to me to be a total refutation of the spirit of the poem; a *denial* of the wish for freedom expressed in it...
I've always felt closer to the female mind-set than to the male one and would love to make even more connections. But... NOT, if it requires I wear purple, much less wear purple and red together :) I look *worse* than a dog's dinner in 99% of shades of purple. And I look like a freshly dug-up corpse in 45% of the red shades... I should give up the pleasure of looking good (at least in my own opinion) *as well as* the pleasure of sounding intelligent (my memory is deteriorating, as is my vocabulary in both languages), when I get to be 55? *WHY*????
Is getting out of a cage and into a straight jacket *really* what most women desire? If so, I'm more out of touch with reality than I'd thought I was...
-- Tamara P Duvall http://t-n-lace.net/ Lexington, Virginia, USA (Formerly of Warsaw, Poland) - To unsubscribe send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [EMAIL PROTECTED] For help, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
