My mother would lie in bed and rub cold cream on her face in slow precise circles for about fifteen minutes each night. When I was young I was in awe of the ritual, and how that must have been the reason she was so beautiful. It was the only time she was really relaxed and we would have intense talks about books or people in the news. Only her people weren’t just politicians like my father’s but authors and artists. I soaked up her love of the arts. We talked about other things also. Cold cream time was our time to be girls together.
By the time I was sixteen, I couldn’t believe how cheap she was. She used plain cold cream, and no facial wash but soap. However she was always made up, and clothes, well clothes were important to my mother. Before I was adopted she owned an expensive dress shop in Forest Hills, and when I was in my early teens, my parents bought the first of four junior sportswear shops they were to own in Queens and Long Island. My dad was a CPA, but his Saturday hobby was working the cash machines. He had a pretty wife and two hipper-than-thou daughters. My sister was and is classic bohemian with an edge. I was standard issue better dressed hippie; sometimes mod.
My parents were proud of our looks, and I learned from my mother that vanity is an attribute every person should have. Vanity got my mother up and dressed in the morning after she lost her sight, beginning at 70. Vanity enabled her to still put make-up on. Vanity kept her active in the community; vanity kept her social life going after my father died.
Vanity isn’t narcissism which is an over inflated love of self, usually in borderline personalities, and always dangerous. Vanity keeps us from giving into to minor disabilities, problems, depression, and many other things. By depression I mean under six months, situational, etc., etc.
But vanity stopped my mother from accepting limitations that became necessary or overcoming other ones. She refused to use a cane; she refused many services; she refused to get an aide for a long time. Frankly my life began to feel like somebody else’s, and I lost my vanity for a long time.
Vanity’s something that stays embedded in you, and I finally got mine back. I over reacted to Dick Clark because while I am a licensed social worker, and my field is geriatrics, I have developed a deep fear of strokes, heart aches and more. I will spare you the details. I know how ironic it is; and I’m working on it.
Dick Clark and some relatives are the last remaining heroes of my childhood. Of course I stopped watching American Bandstand in my early teens. It didn’t play the right kind of music. I’m sure that I made fun of Dick Clark. I probably equated him with Art Linkletter. Freshman year in college my friends rented Perry Como’s daughter’s house. They had his phone number and one night we called and sang some song about a star that he was really famous for.
Yeah I know that Perry Como and Dick Clark represent different types of music and different generations. But they were all the same to us; not hip.
Only Dick Clark, he was hip. We were judgemental; we were harsh youth who believed in our own immortality.
At some point he came back into my life and was just as welcome as when I was seven. Seeing him Saturday night reminded me once more how fragile life is; and how even Dick Clark, with all the resources in the world and I did admire the empire he built, ages inside his body, while the outside can still be perfect.
I’m trying to become as fit and healthy as I possibly can so that I can live a long happy life. Once more I had my dream world shattered.
Dion’s coming out with a new CD soon. He’s not a Philadelphia boy as so many other’s of Dick Clark’s boys were. He’s a Belmont Avenue Bronx boy.
For years I was a closet doo wop and pre-Beatles rock lover. But it’s the music of my early childhood; the music I would listen to with headphones on after my mother applied the cold cream. It’s the music that never fails to make me feel pure happiness; it brings back the joy of my childhood. Watching Dick Clark used to do that; it also made me feel secure as if somethings never change. Yet they always do.
Oh well I’m the type of guy who will never settle down
Where pretty girls are well, you know that I’m around
I kiss ‘em and I love’em ’cause to me they’re all the same
I hug ‘em and I squeeze ‘em they don’t even know my name
They call me the wanderer yeah the wanderer
I roam around around around…
Oh well there’s Flo on my left and there’s Mary on my right
And Janie is the girl with that I’ll be with tonight
And when she asks me which one I love the best
I tear open my shirt I got Rosie on my chest
‘Cause I’m the wanderer yeah the wanderer
I roam around around around…
Oh well I roam from town to town
I go through life without a care
‘Til I’m as happy as a clown
With my two fists of iron and I’m going nowhere
I’m the type of guy that likes to roam around
I’m never in one place I roam from town to town
And when I find myself a-fallin’ for some girl
I hop right into that car of mine and ride around the world
Yeah I’m the wanderer yeah the wanderer
I roam around around around…
Oh yeah I’m the type of guy that likes to roam around
I’m never in one place I roam from town to town
And when I find myself a-fallin’ for some girl
I hop right into that car of mine and ride around the world
Yeah ’cause I’m a wanderer yeah a wanderer
I roam around around around…
‘Cause I’m a wanderer yeah a wanderer
I roam around around around…
Hi Pia,
I love that Dion song. I’ve even sung it live a few times in front of varied small audiences. People react really well to the song – and the lyrics really appeal to the wanderlust spirit. Status Quo covered it in the 80s and it was a big hit in the UK, but I already knew the Dion version as I grew up listening to my Dad’s 50s and 60s albums and tapes in the car.
Vanity and many other things classable under the general phrase “being set in their ways” causes people to hold out on their approaching old age. I remember my grandmother refusing to move into a bungalow (and therefore having to climb a set of stairs painfully every night) because she had lived in the same place for a long time. When she finally had to move, after a few days in the new place she said “oh, I should have done this years ago”. You can imagine that a number of people who had fought to keep her in the house with the stairs were a little cross about that.
Thanks for the blogroll… I’m honoured.
-Fruey
Well… part of the reason for your response could be attributed to accepted behaviour in America. In Europe there is a much more relaxed attitude to intimate behaviour.
Of course this observation is only based on the media – I have only visited San Francisco as an adult, so have only seen the most liberal city in the country…
I just wrote a comment and my stupid connection went away and I lost it all… oooff!
But I cannot let this post go without commenting on it.
I loved this post. It was very beautifully and artfully written. I felt like I was there, watching it all happen from above, a silent guest into your lives…
I could feel your great love for your mother… first a child’s pure love and awe at this perfect creature called mom, then a woman’s understanding of her mother’s frailty and love and compassion in spite of it all…
Vanity… and ode to vanity. I have had to fight for my right to vanity, my right to a shameless and proud vanity and your making a distinction between it and narcissism is what brings it all home. Vanity, a right… vanity, excuse men use to cause much suffering for women in repressed countries…
Beautiful piece Pia…
Pia, that should be the post about Dick Clark’s situation. Magnificent. Do you think if I read you long enough I’ll understand women?
I think we all get attached to the music of our youth.. it’s a little different when you reach beyond your own time and place.
Like tv shows and other media, it becomes an ingrained way in which we define who we are, gives us a sense of belonging and fitting in.
Nice post. I’ve considered vanity versus narcissism in much the same way.
I love your blog template.
why does love of doo wop and pre-beatles rock have to be “in the closet”? hehe
thanks for the link, i’ll add one to you as well!
This was an interesting read. Isn’t it interesting the simple ways women used to take care of their skin, yet it was so less damaged. My mom said my Grandma used cow saliva & had the most beautiful skin in the world. Weird, huh?
Always a pleasure reading about your childhood memories
I loved your post. Just beautiful. When you spoke of your mother and the cold cream ritual, I was reminded of my grandmother Alice – who never washed her face in hot water, never used soap, moisturized with lemon cream – later did the cold cream ritual . . .she was wrinkle free at 104 except for a tiny crease between her eyes from squinting when she started to lose her sight. We could probably learn a lot from those ladies. Nothing wrong with taking care of ourselves. It’s as much an act of self love as anything else we do that is just for us.
Pia, that was just beautiful. Thanks for the smile. It is indeed amazing how vanity is necessary for a good self-image — to lose it is to stop caring for yourself.
My great-grandma was a cold-cream lady, too! Dove soap and Pond’s cold-cream, and her skin was perfect until she died at 86.
Wonderful and a wonderful “tribute” to the GREAT Dick Clark!!!!
I can’t comment above but I don’t think I was meant to. Notice how I get around that? Anyway, I think Dan’s words were very nice and also, right.
Of course I visited him straight away.:)
We all hold on to something(s) for thier unchanging nature – reruns of favorite television shows, our favorite movies, the perfume Mom wore when we were young…I think all people do this because we know nothing is permanent and life is a constant state of flux. We hold close to what we know to regain that sense of calm and security. I think it’s sweet whenever I come across the “comforts” others hold dear.
I had a little giggle to myself when you referred to her as cheep due to what she used. I have super sensitive skin, I look a little crazy because I carry all sorts of random weird things with me for “just in caseâ€. Such as soap, because normal soap makes my skin blister. Why am I mentioning this? Because most of todays modern skincare products give me a similar reaction, so I use old cold cream and handmade vegan soap .. *giggles*
Each night I ask the stars up above… why must I be a teenager in love?
Vanity vs. narcissism? Neat.
I think Dion is playing solo at Joe’s Pub; I have a friend who goes to concerts pretty much every night and he mentioned it.
Love the old doo-wop music. Sometimes wish I could have lived during that time. Drive-ins. Sock hops.
Always thought of vanity as a bad thing.
Quality post, Pia.
your mother reminds me of my grandmother.
this post facinates me.
Hello Pia,
I finally decided to stop by and comment this time.
My first thought on seeing Dick Clark, and we did watch it where I was specifically to see him, was Bravo. I know many people felt differently about it.
My grandmother used Ponds Cold Cream and Noxzema. Don’t ask me how I know that.
I think that’s the first positive statement I’ve ever read on vanity, and it was pretty convincing. BUT when old stars have a zillion plastic surgeries and obvious rugs and dye jobs it makes me, with all due respect to Dick Clark et. al., nostalgic for my Puritan and Scotch Irish ancestors who were too busy to worry about vanity, which after all does still mean airy nothingness.