Striking

       When I first watched the 1943 version of Pride and Prejudice I was already a huge fan of the book. It wound around in my mind like coil, curving and digging into my brain in some palaces while lightly brushing in others. Not surprisingly, I watched it alone, while my parents were out and I found myself captivated by the actors in the movie. The women weren't today's kind of beautiful. The ideal, big breasted, skinny women that men are supposed to fantasize about now days. They were curvy and a healthy kind of plump.
Their features were striking. I love that word, striking. I won't ever be gorgeous, but I have been called striking. That is my word. The one used to describe me. I am not plain or beautiful or ugly. I am striking. Maybe that's why I love older things. Back in the early 1900s, the more striking you were, the more people looked at you, the more you got to sing and dance. The more you got to be an artist and let your hair down as you pranced along the street on the arm of a man in a bowler hat with a tie who listened to jazz. He might have a black car, one of the ones that had no safety precautions, but who cared. It was the 1920s or the 1930s and America was the place to be for the show biz scene.
Can't you imagine it?
Old fashion cloths have an effect of causing people to cry "I look like my grandmother in this!", but to me the cloths from back then have grace and elegance. A story to tell. Like my great grandmother's necklace.
It's beautiful. White stone, making a pattern that branches out from the center and expands until it reaches the corners and fades out elegantly. It's set in silver, with a matching chain. My great grandmother wore it all the time, with the dress she was buried in. My grandmother always talks about how her mother and father would go out  on drives around Jamestown, Minnesota, where great grandpa was mayor. She would were her dress and necklace.   I want to be like that. But I know I can't be. I'm me. I live here, in this time, where striking isn't beautiful. It's striking. But striking is all I've got.