Blue and Pink Dilemma

A few weeks ago I indulged myself on the Marks & Spencer website. Saturday the package arrived in the mailbox from England.  I rushed to open it as if it was a surprise Christmas present.  I had ordered an adorable British “mac” rain jacket for Austin for his first birthday in February along with some striped socks.  The 12 -18 month size “mac” is a medium light blue just the color of Austin’s eyes. Perfect!  I was excited at my excellent choice until I unzipped it and saw the strong pink lining and the pink spots on the yellow giraffe which is spread across the front.  Oh no!   Had I failed to read the product details correctly?  Was this “mac” really meant for a girl?  How could it?  It’s a beautiful soft blue just perfect for Austin.  But what about the pink lining?

I put the “mac” aside while puzzling over whether this was a girl or boy jacket.  When I came back to look again I decided it would be just fine.  But my eyes were drawn to the pink lining once more.  Art, in is ever optimistic way said, “Jessica is a gender specialist and very liberated, she won’t think anything of it.”  My daughter-in-law is smart and an independent thinker and yet I suddenly didn’t know what she’d think of the blue and pink “mac”.  She was born in the mid1970’s.  Maybe it’s my problem. After all I am the baby boomer grandmother.  Could that be?  Perhaps Marks & Spencer is more on top of gender issues than I am.  

Still, I wrote an email to Customer Service at Marks & Spencer to find out if I had missed something.  I explained I had ordered the baby blue “mac” without seeing the pink lining, and this is for my grandson. Is it really a girl’s “mac”? Within 24 hrs. I had personal response.  Marks & Spencer apologized for the confusion, would contact the department that describes merchandise on the website, and rectify this by issuing me an email gift card for the price of the “mac” which I can use anytime in the next 2 years. What they did not specify was whether this is for a girl or a boy.  They simply said I could keep the rain jacket and buy something else.  Hmmmm…

For anyone who does not know me, I have had a 49-year old love affair with the British department store, Marks & Spencer dating back to 1966  I was 20 years old, a junior in college when I left on a life changing semester abroad program in London.  Arriving in cold, wet February in a city where central heating was still a luxury and coal fireplaces were the norm I was tempted to go to bed at night without undressing at all.  My English sister Jenny introduced me to Marks & Spencer the first week I was there and I stocked up on warm lambswool sweaters, sweater dresses, and wooly nightgowns that lasted me for years.

Mother and Dad were lifelong lovers of M & S clothes as they travelled frequently to Europe in their retirement years. Mother would come back to the US with piles of M & S clothing both for winter and summer and would often pick up something for me.  I did the same for her and for years we exchanged M & S nightgowns which I still have and wear.  Mom and I could never bring ourselves to discard anything with an M & S label. Our M & S things became precious and brought back too many wonderful memories of trips to England. Jenny has sent me gifts for Christmas and my birthday nearly ever year since I’ve known her always from M & S.  This year it was a pair of black leather gloves.  When we moved to Dubai for two years I was in heaven with a two story Marks and Spencer store in the Festival City Mall.  That became my favorite place to go and six years later I still hang on to my summer M & S wardrobe. Now M & S is online offering frequent promotions for free shipping to the US and Canada.  I love it!

Back to my “mac” dilemma.  This morning I researched  pink and blue which were introduced in the mid19th century. Prior to that all baby clothes were white and unisex.  This made them easier to wash and bleach and use for several children. How sensible! Pink and blue were introduced around World War I but pink was thought to be more for boys and blue for girls. Pink being a color that suits brown eyed and brown haired boys and blue for blue-eyed blonde girls.  But Austin is blonde and blue eyed, I thought!  Manufacturers in the 1940’s reversed colors bringing in blue for boys and pink for girls.

Baby boomers like me were definitely raised with gender specific clothing. Boys must look like Dads in colors and style and girls were meant to be more feminine like Moms wearing dresses and skirts.  Up until the 1960’s while I was still in college I remember we could ONLY wear slacks if the temperature was below 15 degrees in the winter. This was in rural Iowa!

As I read on, the 1960’s and the women’s lib movement brought back a more unisex idea of clothing for children. Girls, like boys, should be freer to be more active physically.  It seems, however, that in the mid 1980’s with the development of the sonogram technology and the ability to know the sex of an unborn baby, manufacturers went back to gender specific colored clothes.  So, now, people could shop for just the colors to match the unborn baby boy or girl.

It surprises me at how much time I have spent this weekend pondering the dilemma of pink and blue and I miss my mother.  I would have taken this whole discussion down to her along with the blue “mac” for Austin to get her take on it all and she would have said something wise…but am not sure what.  

Now I’m left feeling out of step with the times which is something I pride myself on not being! But it is a reminder that I am a baby boomer grandmother and I’d better get “in step” with the 2015 generation. The blue and pink “mac” is on it’s way to Washington D.C. and I’ll just let Jessica, the gender specialist, decide.

The M & S blue "mac"

Gorgeous blue eyes...

Silence

            “Take a deep breath, exhale…then listen to the silence,” says Carol in her soft soothing Yoga instructor voice.  I lie on my back on the floor, arms and legs spread out, eyes closed trying to quiet my mind. I have come to the Asheville Yoga Center to try out a Restorative Yoga class.   But the word silence catches my attention. My mind goes off again as I struggle to reign in scattered thoughts.  I have been thinking about silence lately – mostly pondering where I find it in my life these days.

            Last October and November, before Mother’s death I sensed a change as she slowly began to withdraw from life.  I would go to her room, find her in her wheel chair or in her soft cozy armchair awake but quiet.  She was happy to see me when I came close and she knew it was me.  Following our ritual of a cup of tea and a cookie I would share tidbits of news mostly of the family. She would listen in her quiet way.  Some afternoons she spoke very little.  At first I filled in the spaces with my chatter.  Then, I too, began to let go and give in to the long pauses.  Sometimes I simply held her hand. There was a comfort and closeness just being together.  I learned that words didn’t seem necessary. Silence was soothing but this was a change.

            I remember all the years I came “home” to Hawkcrest in Vermont from other places. It was a near spiritual experience to drive up the steep windy roads of Gt. Hawk Mountain, slowly leaving the “real world” behind. Alighting from the car at the top of our driveway I would simply listen to the quiet around me. At first it was almost deafening.  For the first few days there was only the whisper of the trees blowing in the breeze and an occasional car going by on the dirt road below us.   I remember all of it as the deep exhale in Yoga breathing - letting everything else go to be here in the moment. On my mountain in Vermont I learned to savor the complete silence.

            Now that I don’t go back to the mountain in Vermont I look for quiet in other places. On Sunday mornings at the Unitarian Church in Asheville I savor the Silence and Meditation - the time when Mark Ward says a few words for us to think about in his soft “ministerial” voice. Then, there is complete stillness in the sanctuary except for the occasional siren or car going by the church - sounds from the outside penetrating the silence or an occasional throat clearing reminding me that there are many others in this place. On hikes through the woods if I am far away enough from Asheville, there is welcome quiet and yet inevitably there are planes flying overhead and the distant sound of traffic even on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It’s not the same.

            Silence has entered my life in a different way since Mother died in early December.   As I have grappled to adjust to a world without her, I think of my loss as a different form of silence. I mourn her absence but at the same time I carry her within me each and every day.  I am accepting my world without her remembering that in the silence of her absence she is always with me.  

 October 1, 1919 - December 6, 2014