7 Things I love

Okay, I know a list of things I love is so cliche, silly really. Silly, if I list things that everyone loves. But if I try to make a list of things I love that are perhaps unique to me, Well then it is an interesting list. I think if we all search back through our personal histories we will remember things that we used to love that are still part of us. That perhaps we still love them. Like that old boyfriend that my husband jokingly asked me to get over. I said, deadpan,"I never will", not that I am in love with him, not that I don't love my husband, but to my 16-17 yr.old self (which, let's face it, is still in there), I still love him.


#1. Alizarin Crimson, oil color, 1997-1999, I painted in this color almost exclusively for a few years in college. It is a beautiful sheer bluish red, absolutely gorgeous.

#2. The scent of a fresh orange being peeled. It brings Christmas to me. I only buy oranges in winter. It is a strong association.

#3. Christmas. I unapologetically love Christmas. I can say in all honesty that it has nothing to do with the consumeristic hullabaloo that the holiday has become. I love the ritual, I was raised Catholic, it's in me. I love the food, the sweets especially. I love the parties. I love being with my family and friends. I love sharing it all with my two sons, who don't even notice that mommy and daddy get them one present each for Christmas, probably because they have a zillion relatives that like to spoil them...The candles, the music, I could go on and on.

#4. Splinters being taken out and vice versa. Strange but true.

#5. French films, I hardly ever see one I don't appreciate. I think it may be a combination of the beautiful women who aren'tafraid to be a little curvacous, unlike many american actors and the openness about sex and the body and all that.

#6. Jane Austen. Let's face it she was brilliant. Her novels are timeless. They are funny and smart at the same time .Her heroines are intelligent, witty, young women. The language is beautiful. Her characters are so vibrant and alive. I especially love Henry Tilney from Northanger Abbey who manages to be one of (or perhaps the only) young male character who is kind, funny, smart and yet unpretentious. I didn't name my Henry after him exactly, but in hindsight, I could have. What about Persuasion? The quiet Anne Elliot, patiently putting up with her snobbish father and boob of a sister. Obeying the family friend and not marrying the man that she loves only to meet him years later, the dashing Captain Wentworth. The restraint... it's heartbreaking. I haven't even mentioned Pride and Prejudice. I reread at least one Jane Austen novel a year.

#7. If I mention novels I get stuck. I love to read. I must mention one more and then I will make myself stop. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy is a favorite as well. It is a swashbuckler. I am not generally a fan of this genre, but I make an exception. Here again we have a strong heroine. The novel's title is misleading. The central character is not, in fact the Pimpernel ( a man) but a woman. A brave, smart and couragous woman who loves her husband but because of his politics and an incident involving her family is cold to her. The story takes place during the French Revolution, a mysterious character who goes by the name of Pimpernal is rescuing aristocratic families from France by bringing them to safety on English shores.


And now I am tired, to be continued...