DAUGHTER OF EVE, DAUGHTER OF DESIRE What happens when the father of American literature collides with an Italian designer of elegance & sophistication in Northern Ontario? P & I went to the drugstore on Saturday, to print some photos. In order to get to the print centre, we had to walk through the fragrance department, with its gorgeous displays of flacons and scents, and beautiful young women standing at the ready, samples and smiles doled out with equal enthusiasm. I love fragrance counters. All the expensive scents that I’ll never buy but still get to try out, that feeling of being worldly and sophisticated, being slow & deliberate in my meanderings, looking, picking up one bottle & putting it down, then moving on to another that catches my eye & spritzing it on my wrist….then waiting, and letting the scent waft around me. Closing my eyes and going “mmmm”…..then walking away, to the chagrin of the salesgirl who thought she’d be making a sale…..but no! Anyways, I’m getting carried away here….. As we were walking through the fragrance department, we happened upon the display for Nina Ricci’s new perfume, aptly called Nina. I would buy it just for the beautiful bottle it comes in: P & I were so enchanted with the display & the colours, we actually ooo’d out loud. I picked up a bottle & spritzed some on, and I immediately fell in love. Not being familiar with the concept of testers, P was shocked that I did this, until I explained to him that I wasn’t doing anything illegal by spritzing on perfume from a tester. I showed him the tester sticker on the bottle; he nodded his understanding, but I could see that the more he learned about the world, the more he found adults hard to figure out (he discovered this week that I am really Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy). Anyhow, I spent the whole day smelling Nina-licious….even the kids kept snuggling into me every chance they got to inhale this apple-musky-vanilla scent…. So what does the new Nina Ricci fragrance have to do with Mark Twain? Probably not alot, really, except that the fragrance Nina is inspired by Fille d’Ève, created in 1952 by Madame Ricci, and I’ve just finished reading Eve’s Diary, Mark Twain’s witty interpretation on how Eve might have lived her first days in Eden. A romantic masterpiece if ever I’ve read one. Written about 100 years ago, it’s thought to be Twain’s posthumous love letter, to cope with the grief of losing his wife. That, in and of itself, is reason to read the story. In the Christian tradition, Eve is the one who ate the apple, who tempted Adam, who also ate the apple, thereby setting in motion the concept of original sin, and the whole world went to hell in a handbasket from there. Or did it? I think Eve gets a bad rap from humans. She was created with desire, that’s part of woman’s nature. The apple she ate is her fearless daring at satisfying her desires. But she couldn’t have known desire if she had not experienced loss. Only from loss does one feel desire. And because loss manifests itself as a wound that must heal, you can only heal by desiring to love again. Eve’s Diary is about a woman having a difficult time adjusting to her surroundings and dealing with loss. Sound familiar? Mark Twain could’ve called it Chantal’s Diary, or Philomena’s Diary, or Sarah’s Diary, or Everywoman’s Diary…..you get my drift. In reading Eve’s Diary, I was reminded of my own journey through a marriage that ended in divorce, at my own bewilderment and sorrow at wondering where I went wrong, then making the even more sorrowful discovery that I had actually lost myself in the process. To love again…..that’s something I desire, most certainly, and more than I care to admit. The loss of love is something I need to heal from. And so I suppose that having experienced this loss, the way to healing it is to desire to love again. Which I do. I do desire to love again, as opposed to what I used to think, which was that I wasn’t worthy of loving anyone, let alone be loved by someone. So that’s part of the healing. Good. I’m on my way. However (and you knew this was coming), some losses require a little more healing than others. My mother passed away a few years ago, and the last year or so of her life was the most gentle time I had with her. The preceding 36 years were not that great, marred by events in my childhood that rocked the house, ours and the Lord’s. Some aftershocks are still felt after all these years, but they’re minor now. I am, after all, an adult. Thirty-some years is a long time though, to be carrying around hurt and rage. I lost my mother physically, yet it’s not that loss that I find I need to heal from the most. It’s my sense of value and worth as a daughter, as a child. I wanted to matter to my mother, that I was worth protecting. I wanted to feel that in her eyes, I was a shining star. That I mattered to her more than anything that she had going on at the time. When I look at the relationships with the men in my life, with my friends, with my sisters, with my children especially, I see how I’m trying to find a little bit of the mother I lost in that 30-year time span. Subconsciously, I’m looking to be special to someone. That sounds really pathetic, wimpy, and kind of self-centered. And I’m sure if another woman would tell me this, that she wants to be special to someone, I’d probably frown, raise an eyebrow and think “We’re all special, you ninny, now get a grip and move on!” I wouldn’t tell her that, of course. Let someone else burst her bubble. Because as much as that might sound weak or whatever, it’s kind of courageous to be so openly (stupidly?) vulnerable. If I would send a secret to PostSecret, that’s what I would write on my postcard: I need to feel that I’m special to someone. On the postcard, there would be a picture of a mother from the ’50s, all smiling, in a fabulous dress & apron, a freshly-baked pie in one hand, a bible in the other, and her back turned to her daughter. The daughter has this look of longing in her eyes as she looks to her mother to give her sustenance….just a little. I miss my mother with all my heart. That last year was our year to forgive and give love. I don’t begrudge her the choices she made, but I am still angry and hurt. The discovery of the year? Even though she’s gone, the rage at the emotional losses can still heal. They heal with my desire to love again. Just like Eve. By eating the apple, she had the courage and desire to live the pain as well as the joy, she listened deeply & heard the whisperings to love again.