Don't Waste the Pretty

It's what a beautician told me some years ago as she bent over my nails when I was half-crazed with the decision I had just made-- to leave my philandering then-husband and begin anew. Honestly, I didn't know what she meant.

"Don't waste the pretty?" I asked.
"Don't waste the pretty," she said again and proceeded to describe a man she was in a relationship with, the sex they were having (I believe up against the wall was mentioned), and the frustration with her pending divorce. I was still hung up on pretty. What I didn't really realize was, at 35 years old with two kids, no solid career, and a mountain of worry, that I was pretty. And that pretty could matter at that age and at that time-- to me. To someone else who could take that pretty and make me feel... dynamic. Apparently, I was pretty enough for this girl to see it.

A simple thing, a tiny gift, a piece of newness long after the years of trailing a wedding train down a church aisle of ribbons and blooms, promises and potential. I had forgotten what pretty was, and pretty isn't something a woman feels when she learns her husband has been banging someone else for two years. Pretty isn't something I thought about after tending babies and being an accessory to my then-husband's career-- helpful, but invisible, and ultimately, unappreciated. He had, at one time, bragged to his co-workers that he had married me for my smarts but that he didn't find me beautiful. It was a back-handed comment, particularly when at home he would insinuate that I wasn't smart enough to succeed in the world of business. I didn't just feel unattractive, I felt incompetent and abandoned. It was a terrible time. Who knew that pretty could be a defining moment?

But "don't waste the pretty" was the right and unconventional advice I was given at a time when my life was more questions than answers and more fear than foundation.

And I didn't waste the pretty, but I was choosy about it. My pretty blossomed in the attentions of the man I ended up marrying later, not that all stories should end that way. But "don't waste the pretty" gave me permission to break rules and convention and to be, for a little while, a girl again-- that unfettered girl awaiting a date on a porch trimmed in azaleas and twinkle lights, a girl smiling secretly with the knowledge that someone thought she was the poetic drug of love embodied in flame and flesh. A girl, a pretty girl, who could not just be loved, but be... craved.

Pretty is empowering.

A few months ago, I sat in my hairdresser's chair and asked that question that people usually only give the most untruthful answer to: "How are you?" In a conversation that resulted from our mutual discovery that things were for both of us very hard, very bleak, very overwhelming, I was able to turn to her and tell her as she described the end of her relationship and the circumstances surrounding it, the magic words she says she still finds herself repeating: Don't waste the pretty.

This young woman, a mother herself, is a sort of muse in the modern, alternative sense. At not even 30 years old, she is petite and lean with tattoos emblazoning her shoulders, chest, and the backs of her thighs. Ropes of dark hair trimmed with crimson spiral about a most delicate face. There is usually something artfully torn or fitted and leathery across her body. There are piercings. Somehow, running throughout her Suicide Girl image, she is soft-spoken, deliberate, hesitant, sweet, and innocent. I keep waiting for wings to break forth and lift her.  I just want to protect this girl. I tell her, as she asks questions about the things she is thinking about, that everything will be ok, that there is time, and that time is the answer. And I tell her again, don't waste the pretty.

Could a girl who has striven for her indie-punk appeal still be affected by pretty? When I see her, I see so much pretty and fragility. And while I know what century this is and that women aren't supposed to hang expectations for ourselves on armored men astride white horses, that there are those of us who just want, for five seconds, to put everything else aside and be pretty to someone, as she most certainly does. And as I most certainly do.

Those years ago, in what I refer to as my previous life, I sat in a church praying to God that I not waste away and grow old before my time-- unrecognized, unloved, and unappreciated. I felt my sexuality dissolving under the weight of laundry baskets, dirty dishes, needful children, and neglect. I was second to someone else's high-powered career, with his golf dates, expense accounts, slick sales talk, and business plans. I would later pack up my art studio and shelve those aspirations thinking that my goals were detracting from the family I was trying to hold together. I thought I deserved the hand I was taking-- the hand of someone who would rather indulge in Internet fantasy, office trysts, and dishonest business practices. Pretty was a luxury then. I was just trying to survive.

I thank the beautician who first brought back pretty to me, and to the young lady who is taking the turn I once took for reminding me again about pretty. To her, I pass the advice on. Don't waste it. Don't waste the pretty.

What Women Really Want... At Least This One

Last Christmas, my husband asked me what I wanted. I did not even have to think.


“An umbrella,” I said.

“No, really. What do you really want?” he pressed.

“An umbrella. Mine just broke. I would also like long sleeve pajamas and a pair of slippers.” He thought this was really funny, but I am a practical person. I find receiving extravagant gifts to be somewhat embarrassing. I really prefer what I really need, and only on occasion might think of something I actually want for the sake of wanting. This year, for my birthday, I identified a want.

“I would like a houseplant for my birthday, please.”

I realize a lot of women ask for jewelry. But for me, the houseplant represents something greater.

“Any particular kind of plant?” asked my husband. I told him, no, that he would see the right thing and know. I suggested maybe something that bloomed once in a while—it would give me something to anticipate. Something that grows, something that represents life. Nothing comforts a room like a thriving potted plant.

For the last year, I have had no houseplants. The ones I moved here last year from out of state became infested with flies and we had to put them outside where they did not survive. After that, we traveled so frequently for my children’s visits with their father, that I wanted one less thing to worry about when we were gone. We still have travel, but there is a greater degree of predictability to it. I can plan now. I can put roots down. I wanted that to be reflected in something else with roots.

On my birthday morning, my son announced he wanted to give me a tree. I followed him downstairs. There, before the piano, stretching tall in an angled loom of light, was a glorious and gracious large pot of ivy on a trellis. My children had helped choose the plant and were excitedly dancing around it. It is as tall as my daughter. The ivy reminds me of the vines that crawled on brick walls in New Orleans. It is as hardy and sustaining as we are. The gift is generous, thoughtful, and beautiful. I felt peace wash over me as I fingered the leaves.

Peace, security, and a sense of home—just what I really wanted.

Salon Speak and the Vietnamese Nail Factory

America’s cities and suburbs are dotted with Vietnamese nail factories to which women flock regularly and in great numbers for a mani-pedi. Comedienne Anjelah Johnson’s routine on the Asian owned salon is exactly on the mark for capturing the experience of what is essentially fast-food for the nails. You can see her interpretation here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsWrY77o77o . Every word she says is true.


My sister and I went this weekend to a salon located in a strip mall with an all glass store front, just as most of these places are. There’s usually a Patrick Nagel-inspired graphic of a woman’s face with a long-nailed hand placed theatrically across it. This one, however, had black window tinting obscuring any view within. I stood under the neon open sign and said, “If this place is a bar, I’m leaving,” but I opened the door to a bright, clean, busy interior. A half-dozen or so ladies were being tended by a slightly smaller number of Vietnamese bent over their hands or feet. The drone of footbaths, the sharp scent of acrylic, and the faux marbled fixtures invited us inside. Every salon interior is just like this one.

“What you need today?” sung out the manager. I could not help but think of Anjelah Johnson’s routine and wondered if I’d be asked about my marital status, which is usually the first question I get once seated in places like this, but the woman who took care of me was fairly quiet that day. Her English was extremely limited, so we did what most do in this situation--smile and nod at each other a lot. At one point, she turned the spa chair on. Truthfully, I don’t like the chairs that much. Those things get going with all the kneading, massaging, and buzzing action and I practically get thrown out of my seat. Once in one of those chairs, the upper back zone kicked in just in time for a male customer to sit down right next to me and my incredibly vibrating breasts. I was mortified. This time, I asked the woman to turn the chair off.

“Okay,” she smiled and nodded. Then she reset the chair to turbo and gave me the remote.

“No, please, off. I’d like the chair off.”

“Okaaay.” More smiles, more nods. The chair stayed on. I examined the remote closely. There was no off button.

Minutes later, when a man appeared to file my fingernails, I asked again. More smiles, more nods. The chair was reduced to a more subtle prodding motion and stayed on. I gave up.

Within the hour, I was polished and groomed, and stood before leaving to admire the spectacular sight of fresh pink, moisturized skin on my hands and feet. In all the professional shops I’ve been, no one does a longer lasting polish than these places, nor as quickly or cheaply. It’s what keeps us Americans coming back. The manager scurried up to me, uttered a few flowing lines of Vietnamenglishese, smiled, and held the door for us. We smiled back.

“What’d she say?” asked my sister.

Anjelah Johnson came to mind again. I can see her talking about the customer service and how nice the ladies are. “Whatevah you like, we do for youuu,” she croons. No promises of good English though.

Silver in the South

Nothing comes between a southern woman and her silver.


My sister and I were discussing this as I helped dig through her storage unit—a surprisingly small accumulation of goods considering her recent move to a much smaller home. We were talking about everything we’d done to pay bills, provide for family, and simplify our lives over the couple of years or so. In need of cash, I had parted with a number of items that I no longer needed—sporting goods, décor, artwork, furniture. Some of those things had incredible memory attached to them. I cried when I put the violin up on the market, but fortunately no one bought it. I listed but could not sell two antique parlor chairs I had reupholstered myself—a blessing really, and maybe something I can pass down one of my children one day. The last item of true value though, is my silver pattern, Gorham’s La Scala, a tribute to Italian opera in delicate scrollwork and engraving. I could not bring myself to part from it. My mother would have me shot anyhow.

The silver pattern accumulated through the marriage isn’t just a wedding gift. It’s a heritage. Women in my family buried their silver to hide it from British soldiers during the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. Other women packed theirs away to soften the hard memories of widowhood. Some women managed to save it during the Great Depression. My sister doesn’t even have an everyday flatware—silver is all she has because, she says, it’s so pretty it must be used to be enjoyed. Her husband packs his lunch for work—Tupperware, insulated lunch bag, and a silver fork—much to the amusement of his co-workers.

I can put a new spin on the phrase “born with a silver spoon in her mouth” because we might have had nothing else, but somewhere in the house, carefully stored and preserved, was a family silver pattern. Hardship is temporary. We know that when we survive our wars, widowhood, divorces, market crashes, etc, and when our homes and lives are back to some degree of predictability, we’ll have regretted selling the silver. My own pattern is still neatly packed and stored safely. I’m not ready to bring it out to regular use yet, but just knowing it’s still there is a piece of priceless sanity.

Second Woman

Some weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone who asked me, in reference to her husband’s prior wife whom I had seen recently, if the woman had looked pretty. We were rocking quietly on a porch with our backs to a surprisingly warm and bright beam of sun in the middle of winter. The air, heavy with heat in its concentrated ray, still cast a threat of coolness each time the swing of the rocker brought shadow across the edges of my knees. I thought about how hearts never age, how in second marriages, a ghost of the first one can still haunt. I looked at this woman, aging gracefully with a man who still after decades refers to her as his bride, and who has a completely devoted following of children, step-children, and grandchildren. I said to her, “She was just a woman.”

Define pretty. Define pretty after thirty some-odd years. Whatever your definition, what do you say to the woman who, although not responsible for driving the first wife out, still finds herself occasionally preoccupied with the lingering image of a rival female?

Last year, I had an interesting discussion with my boss about some kind of disagreement I was having with the woman that replaced me in my former home. Frustrated with the woman’s quick defenses, I had allowed an event to escalate to a place from which neither of us were willing to retreat without looking beaten.

“You know what her problem is, don’t you?” my boss had asked sagely in his thick foreign accent. “She is not first woman.”

First woman! Should I capitalize that? Brilliant! And no, I had never thought of this, ever.

“My mother was not first woman either,” elaborated my boss. “She was always competing. My father’s first wife had been dead for years. It did not matter. She felt second.”

There is a funny power to this realization that helped me gain a little perspective into the situation. I began, despite the complete horror that my ex-husband’s woman had played into once-upon-a-time, to feel a little bit sorry for her. No matter what she does, she is not the first woman. A justifiable consequence in her circumstances? Maybe. But it is what it is.

Ironically, things being the way they are and my own remarriage now a tangible state, I am not my new husband’s first woman either. But it does not really haunt me they way it haunts some others who wear shoes similar to mine. Maybe my plate is so full that I don’t have the time to allow those doubts to preoccupy me. Maybe, I am simply confident in my own role. Maybe, it has more to do with the fact that neither my husband nor I live in a house remotely associated with either of our past marriages. Maybe, not enough time has passed for me to draw further comparisons. My husband might disagree— after all, there is a kitchen table here with a history of wobbling and looking shamefully worn in his prior marriage. This year, I bolted, braced, screwed, and repainted that table into compliance. Replacing it would have cost less money. There might be something subconscious there.

I never will be able to forget the vulnerability of the beloved grandmother on her porch, a woman who past 70 years old can still do a split on a living room floor and then get up without grunting to go whip up the best pimento cheese I’ve ever had, and who still worries that once I had met the first wife, I would like her better. Before I left for the day, I sneaked a note onto her bedroom pillow. It said. “I love you. A lot.” What I meant was, “You win.”