Above the TV in the family room my mom keeps nearly every catalog that comes during the month. I remember an activity I did circa 1985 which took full advantage of her collection.
We had high stools that line the counter of the kitchen pass-through counter. I needed the stool to get up to the catalogs, and I would gather as many as I could muster without falling or dropping my loot onto the ceramic floor. JCPenny's, Sears, maybe a spanking new thing called Pottery Barn, Ethan Allen, Talbots and various other brands that portrayed life as being as ideal and perfect as...well, a catalog.
I spread them out. Collecting scissors, a piece of paper and some pens and markers, I would begin to create my life. Cutting out a couch. Then gluing a picture of the ideal cottage garden next to it. I can feel the paper give way as I ripped a whole page out. Sometimes, I'd be focused on the knickknacks or the flowers in the garden. Other days I would be all about the interior furniture.
One day sticks out in my mind with vivid clarity. I must have been working on the same type of project but this time, perhaps for a class, or for a lesson of sorts that my parents hoped to teach me, I was adding up the prices of each item. I was listing everything I would "need" in life and how much it would cost. (It must have been for a budgeting class.) 2 couches. A dining room table. 8 chairs. A hutch to hold my china. China. That tea kettle on page 87. The outfit on page 6. A rug. My house should like the one in the Mpls/STP magazine. "Hum, I wonder how to figure house prices..."
As I sit on the stool, I am looking into the kitchen and I directly face the back door. I can feel my feet swing and gently kick the back of the cabinet. I see the dishes in the sink, the peanut butter and jelly out on the counter top. There is paper piled orderly in a stack. A decorative bowl holds fruit. To my left I can look out at a lake becoming quiet as fall progresses.
As I am mid-rip in acquiring a table set I like, my mom comes in from the garage. She is loaded down with paper grocery bags. I can't see her face through the overflowing bags. Knowing what I am up to, she plunks the bags down and reaches in to one for a box of tampons and a box of toothpaste. She drops them onto the counter top in front of me with a thud.
"Better be sure to include these on your list as well." she says, with the aplomb of a woman in her early 40's.
The whoosh of ice water that came over the project was a needed reminder to a girl who still looks at way too many catalogs in hopes of life jumping off the page.
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