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Eleanora - Valentine's Day
Dec. 10th, 2024 05:27 pmWith my husband, I was in a large warehouse that had been converted to a coffee shop and other establishments. It was Valentine’s Day, and we had just spent the afternoon at the museum. Now, we were waiting for coffee in this vacuous space in one of the sparse clusters of plushy furnishings for intimate groupings. A large and well-outfitted bar lined one wall, but it was closed for the daytime.
Afternoons like this reminded me of when we were in our 20s. In my memory, I recall our 20s as being full of museum outings and stylish dining experiences, which I know was probably not so. Yet, those experiences were more frequent then than now, almost 20 years later, and it was in the midst of these experiences, then and now, that I felt like a well-cared-for princess, beautiful, stylish. Female servers used to be really rude to me and try to get attention from my husband, which upset me, but in my forties, I looked back and saw that they had behaved that way because I was, in fact, the object of envy, the princess, that I felt myself to be. I was beautiful with shoulder-length dark hair and bangs that framed my pale face and hazel eyes, making me look like a china doll. I had been told more times than I could count that I looked just like Anne Hathaway, and even had a couple of weird experiences in which teenagers truly thought I was Anne Hathaway.
Anne Hathaway, I will think to myself now with a wistful smile, is in her forties, too. I never hear her name mentioned at all anymore.
The fact is, in the past couple of years, I had begun to feel invisible. My fortieth birthday fell during the deadliest and most locked-down part of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. I had had girlish plans that recalled my more fanciful days: I had asked my husband for a long, white Gunne Sax dress, and I wanted to wear it for afternoon tea at one of the local antique mall tea rooms, because I had never had afternoon tea, with the courses, before. Of course, these plans were laid before we had ever heard of COVID-19. Instead, on my fortieth birthday, I was in my room alone and took a selfie of myself wearing the long, white Gunne Sax dress. With my long, flowing dark hair, I looked like a beautiful maiden. That is the very last selfie I’ve taken to this day that doesn’t give me disappointment or shame to see.
Somehow, during that year and a half of isolation, I lost myself. I wore shapeless house dresses and worked from home. I didn’t know what to make of my aging face or physical symptoms that came on me sometimes, like headaches, heart palpitations, sleeplessness, and real panic attacks, like I had always heard about.
Slowly, the world reawakened, and I stole back into it, never sure if I was doing the right thing for myself or others in doing so.
It was a different world: colder, impersonal. A world of Door Dashers. A world of Trump supporters. I had no idea how to act in the world any longer. I didn’t know if I should smile or say hello, or assume that the stranger I interacted with would be rude and so preemptively shut off to them. I usually got it wrong and got my soft “hello” or “how are you” ignored, only to hear the person served after me greeted in a friendly way, or be preemptively cold to someone who was prepared to wish me well that day.
I felt ugly all of the time. My hair had grown out, and my home box dye attempt had damaged my hair, so that it lightened every time I washed it, with the section above my roots a bright orange. I had no idea what clothing I should wear. I realized that over the years, I had become less and less in touch with style and fashion. It may be for this reason that I felt the fashions that were in vogue were unbearably ugly, high-waisted highwater jeans that made a mockery of the body I was struggling to keep in shape, and ruffled lolita-like tops that bared the midriff, not even to be thought of. The wardrobe I maintained was very plain and mostly featured the color gray. I was almost always in a shapeless gray dress or sweater of some kind.
In light of this history, Valentine’s Day, on which I was wearing a nice outfit, a little on the plain side, but still all right, and having learned to dye my hair dark with indigo so that it was no longer bleached out following the bad chemical dye experience, I was looking and feeling all right, comparatively. I felt indulged and loved in this space with my husband where we spoke about random things on our minds. I sipped my Mexican mocha latte drink, savoring the snap of cayenne and cinnamon against my throat, washed and soothed by the milky softness and sweetness of chocolate. It was a memory even sweeter than those in our 20s. Maybe the young girls at the coffee shops were just nicer than they used to be, or maybe we really were just too old to be an object for their aims, but I could sit back against the plush armchair in the urban coffee shop without feeling worried or hurt about anything.
It was in this space that I told my husband about one of the most beautiful works of art that I had ever seen. A doll from a Korean online doll shop, in white ceremonial robes with a scroll in his hands. His sweet, baleful expression complemented the solemnity and spirituality of his look. I showed my husband pictures of the doll from my phone. He agreed with me and saw all of the points that I described about the doll’s beauty and majesty. He gave me a mysterious smile, and I hastily assured him I would never want such an expensive doll and, guilty, would not tell him any more about the doll.
So that was how Aubrey came into my life.
Afternoons like this reminded me of when we were in our 20s. In my memory, I recall our 20s as being full of museum outings and stylish dining experiences, which I know was probably not so. Yet, those experiences were more frequent then than now, almost 20 years later, and it was in the midst of these experiences, then and now, that I felt like a well-cared-for princess, beautiful, stylish. Female servers used to be really rude to me and try to get attention from my husband, which upset me, but in my forties, I looked back and saw that they had behaved that way because I was, in fact, the object of envy, the princess, that I felt myself to be. I was beautiful with shoulder-length dark hair and bangs that framed my pale face and hazel eyes, making me look like a china doll. I had been told more times than I could count that I looked just like Anne Hathaway, and even had a couple of weird experiences in which teenagers truly thought I was Anne Hathaway.
Anne Hathaway, I will think to myself now with a wistful smile, is in her forties, too. I never hear her name mentioned at all anymore.
The fact is, in the past couple of years, I had begun to feel invisible. My fortieth birthday fell during the deadliest and most locked-down part of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. I had had girlish plans that recalled my more fanciful days: I had asked my husband for a long, white Gunne Sax dress, and I wanted to wear it for afternoon tea at one of the local antique mall tea rooms, because I had never had afternoon tea, with the courses, before. Of course, these plans were laid before we had ever heard of COVID-19. Instead, on my fortieth birthday, I was in my room alone and took a selfie of myself wearing the long, white Gunne Sax dress. With my long, flowing dark hair, I looked like a beautiful maiden. That is the very last selfie I’ve taken to this day that doesn’t give me disappointment or shame to see.
Somehow, during that year and a half of isolation, I lost myself. I wore shapeless house dresses and worked from home. I didn’t know what to make of my aging face or physical symptoms that came on me sometimes, like headaches, heart palpitations, sleeplessness, and real panic attacks, like I had always heard about.
Slowly, the world reawakened, and I stole back into it, never sure if I was doing the right thing for myself or others in doing so.
It was a different world: colder, impersonal. A world of Door Dashers. A world of Trump supporters. I had no idea how to act in the world any longer. I didn’t know if I should smile or say hello, or assume that the stranger I interacted with would be rude and so preemptively shut off to them. I usually got it wrong and got my soft “hello” or “how are you” ignored, only to hear the person served after me greeted in a friendly way, or be preemptively cold to someone who was prepared to wish me well that day.
I felt ugly all of the time. My hair had grown out, and my home box dye attempt had damaged my hair, so that it lightened every time I washed it, with the section above my roots a bright orange. I had no idea what clothing I should wear. I realized that over the years, I had become less and less in touch with style and fashion. It may be for this reason that I felt the fashions that were in vogue were unbearably ugly, high-waisted highwater jeans that made a mockery of the body I was struggling to keep in shape, and ruffled lolita-like tops that bared the midriff, not even to be thought of. The wardrobe I maintained was very plain and mostly featured the color gray. I was almost always in a shapeless gray dress or sweater of some kind.
In light of this history, Valentine’s Day, on which I was wearing a nice outfit, a little on the plain side, but still all right, and having learned to dye my hair dark with indigo so that it was no longer bleached out following the bad chemical dye experience, I was looking and feeling all right, comparatively. I felt indulged and loved in this space with my husband where we spoke about random things on our minds. I sipped my Mexican mocha latte drink, savoring the snap of cayenne and cinnamon against my throat, washed and soothed by the milky softness and sweetness of chocolate. It was a memory even sweeter than those in our 20s. Maybe the young girls at the coffee shops were just nicer than they used to be, or maybe we really were just too old to be an object for their aims, but I could sit back against the plush armchair in the urban coffee shop without feeling worried or hurt about anything.
It was in this space that I told my husband about one of the most beautiful works of art that I had ever seen. A doll from a Korean online doll shop, in white ceremonial robes with a scroll in his hands. His sweet, baleful expression complemented the solemnity and spirituality of his look. I showed my husband pictures of the doll from my phone. He agreed with me and saw all of the points that I described about the doll’s beauty and majesty. He gave me a mysterious smile, and I hastily assured him I would never want such an expensive doll and, guilty, would not tell him any more about the doll.
So that was how Aubrey came into my life.
