A Birthday: March Memory Thread

Place: Lawton, Oklahoma
Time: March, 1957 or 1958
Event: Birthday party for oldest child
Curly-haired guest: Amy Stevenson
Red shoes: Amy's mom, Bernice
Brown shoes and long legs: S, father of the birthday girl
Cake: made by me in heart-shaped pans
Birthday Girl's bangs: I used good scissors; I think I may have taped them first.
Birthday Girl's wardrobe: One of several outfits I made for her using this pattern. The skirt buttons onto the blouse and either one can be made from small scraps of fabric. The blouse was made from scraps from one of my blouses; the skirt from scraps from one of S's shirts. I used to lightly starch and iron these outfits.
Upside down toy: a turtle that moved limbs and head as you pulled it along--this was a good quality toy.
Birthday Girl's expression: Priceless!

This is tonight's memory thread! I took the slide photograph with my Contessa Rangefinder Camera. Looking at it, besides the threads of memory, I see: cut-off partial people, a too-high, skewed viewpoint . . . and a really poor overall composition. I am glad to have this picture, but once again, I wish I had paid more attention to what I was doing.

Here is tonight's translated Chinese poem. It is called Remembering.

Remembering

The years, their months
turn, grave and slow, their
fall and spring, again.

Mountain flowers, mountain leaves and
each time's new.

Sometimes I sit alone
and smile upon the child I was,

in memory now distant
and a friend.

Yuan Mei (1726-1798)
The Shambala Anthology of Chinese Poetry, translated and edited by J. P. Seaton, Shambala, page 216.

This nine-line poem captures the movement of time through the seasons and years. It is a good length, I think, to try writing one's own poems. And I think it goes with tonight's memory thread as if it were written for it. Sleep well. Dream . . .