Note to Readers

Thank you for being faithful readers through my two hundred seventy-six weekly blogs. As of January 1st, I’ll post every other week so that I have time for other writing projects.

Reflections on the First Week of Winter - Her Christmas Gift

Angel in Memory of Sister Loretta

While I waited for Sister Loretta’s answer, my cell phone emitted the sound of oxygen whistling through plastic tubes. Next came a sigh from the depths of her generous belly. “I haven’t been to a single store in months.”

I glanced out my kitchen window at swirling snow. “That’s understandable.” How did shopping affect the date for a visit? Not shopping sounded terrific to me. I didn’t relish sweating in a heavy coat while fingering sweatshirts to determine whether the zip-up or pullover felt softer. Nor did I enjoy waiting in a long cash register line. 

But devastated by fibromyalgia, Sister Loretta had spent the last eight months confined to a reclining chair in the convent’s health care center. She would gladly trade her immobility for shopping inconveniences. 

Shifting the cell phone to my other ear, I said, “I’m teaching next week, but I can drive out after dinner. Which evenings are you free?”

“I don't have any presents for you.”

“I don't need presents.”

Squeaks from a rolling hospital cart came through the phone before her voice. “But it's Christmas.”

Christmas. 

Sister Loretta and I had celebrated all but three Christmases together since 1970. Back then, as skinny twenty-somethings attending Cleveland State University, we’d sat on a plastic sofa in Fenn Tower’s third floor lounge. While students milled around us, we bent our heads over tablet paper and penned a letter to the Dean of the College of Education. Would he waive the graduation requirement so we could take the kindergarten-primary certification class during spring quarter? We finished all the other education courses, we reasoned.

The dean granted our request. 

Loretta’s shoulder-length hair bounced, her eyes twinkled behind silver-dollar shaped glasses, and she linked her bony elbow with mine. Flaunting our woman-power, we strutted through hallways to the certification class.

By the next fall, we’d both landed teaching jobs. Every Friday night, we sat on the braided rug in my Near East Side apartment and swapped stories. Her Willoughby kindergarten student had squeezed the life out of a guinea pig because she wanted the pet to stay still. I countered with my inner-city first graders getting angry that I’d married a white man―they’d mistakenly thought I was black like them.

One spring evening, Loretta didn’t share any stories. Gloom clouded her face. Leaving my husband and our other Friday night guests, I walked her out of the apartment and down the wooden stairs to the foot-worn stoop at the sidewalk’s edge. “What's wrong? What aren't you telling me?”

Loretta stared at her sensible shoes and mumbled, “I’ve been accepted by the Sisters of Notre Dame.”

“I didn’t know you wanted to be a nun. Congratulations!” I studied her slumped shoulders, the antithesis of the woman-power posture we’d strutted the previous year. “Why aren’t you ecstatic?” 

Loretta pulled the fingers of one hand with the other.

Traffic swished by on Superior Avenue. Ignoring exhaust fumes, I searched her face for clues to her silence. “What’s ripping you apart inside?”

“My parents refuse to drive me to the convent.” She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “And my mother says you won’t be my friend any more if I become a nun.”

“Because I’m not Catholic? Ridiculous!”

Later that summer, Loretta opened the side door of her parents’ house, and I stepped into the kitchen that screamed silence. 

“My parents aren’t home.” Loretta picked up a small suitcase. “They didn’t want to see me leave.”

With Loretta’s suitcase stowed in my hatchback, I followed her directions—winding through unfamiliar streets for forty minutes to Notre Dame Convent in Chardon. As I drove through its white gates, Loretta rested her hands on the dashboard and leaned forward to get a closer view.

We followed a curved drive past an apple orchard to a towering, yellow brick chapel topped by a cross that reached to the clouds.

“Keep driving.” Loretta pointed down a road through a wooded area.

When I drove out of the woods, a fountain sprayed jets of water in a double-classroom-size pond. I parked and hopped out of the car. Song sparrows whistled and trilled. 

Loretta stepped out, smoothed her skirt with her hands, and walked to the hatchback. She grabbed her suitcase and strode toward three nuns with hands hidden under their aprons. 

The nuns’ smiles stretched wide enough to connect the opposite sides of their wimples. One nun whispered to Loretta.

She set her suitcase on the asphalt and walked back to me. “They want to take me right away so you’ll have to leave.”

Batting back tears, I hugged her. “You’ve picked a beautiful new home, and you’ll make a wonderful nun.” Letting go, I got in the car and watched her hurry away.

Sister Loretta and Janet [Pregnant with Spencer Charles] September 1973

Three years passed. She professed her first vows, and our visits resumed. In time I brought my children along. One December night, Sister Loretta, my son, my daughter, and I bundled for a drive around Nela Park. We oohed and aahed at General Electric’s Christmas lights. Chilled, we warmed in the convent lounge while sipping hot chocolate and exchanging small gifts.

But Sister Loretta didn’t need Christmas to give. She gave year-round. 

Following my nine-year-old son’s cancer surgery, she danced into his Mount Sinai hospital room. Her habit flew open like the wings of an angel, and she sang “Yes, Jesus Loves You.” At the end of the song, she knelt by his bed, prayed, then laughed at her corny knock-knock jokes until my son laughed with her.

Two Christmases later, my children toted their trumpet and flute to Julie Billiart, where Sister Loretta taught learning disabled students. While my children and I nibbled Christmas cookies in her empty classroom, Sister Loretta dashed around gathering other nuns to join us. Stuffed with cookies, the children took the instruments out of their cases, tuned, and played Christmas carols. Sister Loretta’s face glowed as bright as the Christmas star.

Time passed. The children went off to college. Sister Loretta replaced her round glasses with contact lenses. The convent discontinued their long black habits so she dressed in pastel blouses under plaid jumpers. We both gained weight in unflattering places. Celebrations quieted to movie outings or admiring nativity scenes in Catholic churches near the convent. 

And, every year, she giggled while I opened the Christmas gifts she’d bought on a nun’s sparse allowance―happy face stickers to decorate student papers, more candy canes than a classroom of children could eat, and huggable kitten calendars.

Sister Loretta's voice vibrated through the phone and pulled me back from the memories.  “I don't even have a calendar for you.”

She fretted over a calendar after forty-two years of friendship and thirty-seven years as a professed nun? 

I stared at the December 2012 page hanging from the refrigerator. In the picture, kittens batted ornaments on a Christmas tree. Didn't she understand? Her best gifts came from the heart―thousands of prayers, hundreds of blessings, and her loving spirit.  

“You are my gift.”

Whistles from her oxygen tube came through the phone.

Gripping the phone tighter, I tried again. “How about the seventeenth?”

Sister Mary Loretta Gedeon

Thanks to— 

Darlene, who read Sister Loretta’s dialogue when I presented this Christmas story to the Church of the Covenant writing class in December 2012. 

Kevin, the leader of the church class, who encouraged me to share the story with Sister Loretta.

Sister Julie B., who stood behind me on September 17, 2013 and put her hand on my shoulder when I choked up reading the story at Sister Loretta’s funeral mass.

Keith, who edited the story several times when I revised it for a Kaleidoscope WoJo [Women’s Journal] contest.

Members of Erie Pennwriters and Meadville Vicinity Pennwriters who provided feedback when I revised the story yet again for the 2019 Creative Nonfiction Pennwriters Contest. [I won second prize.]

Spence, my husband, for living with me through all the revisions.

Loretta, my beloved friend and guardian angel.

Reflections on the Thirteenth Week of Fall - Worth Every Knot and Stitch

Janet Pinning Quilt Sandwich

“Uh-oh.” I scowled at the waves of cotton fabric cascading off all sides of my friend’s dining room table and puddling over my feet. I needed a new plan. 

Darlene frowned from the doorway of her kitchenette. “Too small?” 

She meant the table where I’d hoped we could center the quilt sandwich—dappled gray backing, cotton batting, and the patchwork top her mom had created years ago. Darlene discovered the quilt top when she’d cleaned her mom’s house after her mom moved into a nursing home. The top surprised Darlene. Made from squares of leftover fabric her mom used to sew clothes for Darlene and her sister, the quilt held memories for my long-time friend—a friend since our middle school daughters introduced us ages ago. 

Darlene had never quilted. She didn’t have a sewing machine. When she’d unfolded the top with reverence and asked for advice on making the top into a quilt, I figured she could manage a prayer quilt—loop yarn through the layers and pray while tying the yarn.

To help my friend with the process, I’d arrived at her South Euclid, Ohio condo after a meeting in honor of Jane Austen’s two hundred forty-fourth birthday. Spending the night and celebrating Jane’s actual birthday with Darlene quilting, an activity Jane did with her mother and sister, made sense to me.

I’d figured we could make the quilt sandwich on the table, smooth the layers, and tie knots from the center out. But centering six square yards of fabric on the six square foot table hadn’t work. The new plan meant the floor, and as a grandmother of twins in college and a retired nurse, Darlene’s floor-crawling days were past.

“We need to use the floor. I’ll get a broom.” If I smoothed and pinned the layers, she could still work at the table. I strode to the utility closet in her kitchen. 

“That makes too much dust for my allergies.” She followed and reached around me for an upright. “I’ll vacuum. It won’t take long.”

While the vacuum purred over the smooth laminate flooring, I huffed and pushed the table against the wall. I moved a couple chairs and slid aside the ironing board. We had plenty of room for Darlene’s fabric purchase, one hundred percent cotton because of her allergies.

“I am getting very extravagant & spending all my Money

. . . in a Linendraper’s . . .I was tempted by a pretty

coloured muslin, and bought 10 yds of it . . .”

Letter from Jane Austen to her sister Casandra

April 11, 1811

Scooping up the soft gray cloth with one arm, I fumbled through the folds for the corners. I handed two corners to my friend, kept the others, and slipped out of my shoes so I didn’t dirty the quilt area. “Lay the right side against the floor.” I walked across the room. 

Bending at our waists, we centered the fabric in the open space and tugged at the sides until the fabric lay straight.

“Uh-oh.” I scowled at the wrinkled fabric spreading like agitated-waves on a lake in a rainstorm. 

The night before, I’d knelt by her bathtub and submerged the smooth fabric in a couple inches of water. A tinge of gray dye and bubbles of laundry sizing dirtied the water. After three tub rinses, we threw the fabric into the dryer. With the color bled and fabric shrunk, we took turns pressing the fabric. That gave us plenty of time to discuss her twin grandchildren.

“I won’t see Tiree this Christmas. He’s working at an Amazon fulfillment center.” 

Memories of multiple radio stories describing mistreatment of workers at fulfillment centers made me groan.

She spritzed water onto a stubborn crease. “Yeah. I don’t like that job either.” She ironed. “Jadzia will be home, but she’s working long hours to get money for her next semester in Mexico. She won’t have much time to visit.” 

Despite hours of pressing Sunday night, the cotton cloth still had wrinkles Monday morning. It needed stretched smooth and taped to the floor. “Do you have masking tape?”

Darlene’s face scrunched in puzzlement. “No-o-o.” She clearly doubted my sanity.

“How about packing tape?”

She disappeared into the kitchen and came back with two roles of scotch-tape. “This is the only tape I have.”

Sheesh. Run out for masking tape or try the scotch-tape? Looking at my socks and dreading the effort of putting on winter gear, I took a roll of tape from Darlene. “We can try.” I plopped onto my bottom and pulled off a two-inch piece of tape.

It twisted and stuck to itself. 

I stuck it to the back of my hand, pulled another piece, and stretched it from the fabric to the floor. It stuck. With more confidence, I placed a second piece a foot away. The first popped off. I stuck it to my hand. 

Darlene stepped behind me. “Maybe the tape would hold if you made the strips longer?”

Pulling four inches off the roll, I pressed the tape onto the fabric and floor. I added another length beside the first. After taping three feet of fabric down, I moved to the other side of the quilt and pointed to where I’d sat. “Stand on the tape so it doesn’t pop off when I pull.”

She kicked off her shoes and stood on the tape.

I tugged, the fabric stretched, and I pressed a new piece of tape. Letting go, I stared at the tape holding the fabric in place and exhaled the breath I hadn’t known I’d held. It worked.

In our shuffling-stocking-foot, bottom-sliding ballet, we worked our way around the backing until I stretched and taped every inch into calm-lake smooth.

“Wow.” Darlene’s face lit like sunshine bursting through clouds. “That’s amazing.”

Amazing would be to get the other layers smoothed on top and the quilt sandwich pinned before the tape sprung lose and the backing crinkled. Again. I grabbed the batting we’d shrunk the night before. After spreading it, I crawled, smoothed it with my hands, and chuckled because I couldn’t imagine Jane Austen crawling on the floor to sew.

Niece Marianne shared the memory of her aunt “. . . Jane sitting quietly in the library at Godmersham, her sewing on her lap, saying nothing for a long while. Suddenly Jane would burst out laughing, jump up . . . run across the room  . . . and write something down. Then she would return to her fireside seat and go on stitching quietly as before.”

Jane Austen, Obstinate Heart: A Biography by Valerie

Grosvenor Myer p. 143

My friend and I held the corners of her mother’s top and eased it onto the center of the batting. The batting should have stuck out on all sides. It only stuck out from two.

“Uh-oh.” Darlene’s face wrinkled in worry.  

Mind didn’t. “We can fix that.” I waved my hands at her feet. “Stand on the other side.” 

While she stood, I tugged.

Cotton batting stretched out from under the top.

“Do we need to tape it?”

“No.” Thank goodness. “We need to pin it.” Crawling to the middle, I stuck a safety pin down through the layers. It pricked the floor. “I hope the pins don’t scratch your floor.”

“It’s just a floor.” She bent her knees for a closer look. “If I sat on a step stool, I might be able to help.”

A step stool on the quilt wouldn’t help. “Keep me company by sharing your memories of the quilt.”

She pulled a chair up to the side of the quilt and pointed to a yellow, blue, and green square. “Mom made a sundress for me out that material. It was my favorite dress.” She sighed. “Mom made all my clothes until I was in high school, and I told her to stop because the other kids didn’t wear homemade clothes.” Darlene shook her head. “I wasn’t too smart back then.” Her eyes surveyed the quilt. “And that fabric with the blue, green . . .” Her wiggling finger pointed toward a corner.

I reached over and patted a print with a black background. “This flowered one?”

“Yeah. I think Mom made me a halter top out of that.”

We fell into silence while I pinned and remembered clothes my mother had made me. In high school, I hadn’t told her to stop sewing me clothes because, when I worked at the public library, the librarians commented behind my back, “Look at that outfit. It’s too gorgeous to waste on a child.”

Standing to stretch, I fetched Playing Jane Austen. “Read while I work.” 

Changing voices for characters, Darlene read. I pinned. 

“Miss Bates: Dear! dear! where can the letter be? I had it but a moment ago . . . Ah! here it is. I was sure it could not be far off; but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately that I was almost sure it must be on the table.”

Playing Jane Austen by Rosina Filippi page 40

We laughed at Miss Bates’s rambling speeches and our own tendency to lose things.

Two plays and two hundred twenty-five pins later, I finished.

I pulled tape off the floor, stuck the pieces onto the back of my hand making a translucent blob, and lifted the pinned quilt sandwich to the table. Fabric cascaded over the sides and puddled onto my feet. The layers stayed centered.

“Now you’ve got to tie yarn in each place I inserted a pin. Start from the center and work out.”

Demonstrating how to thread a fat-eyed needle with the brown yarn Darlene had chosen, I pinched yarn between my thumb and finger, shoved the needle over the yarn, and pulled. “You try.”

After the seventh try, she got it. “Rocking the needle back and forth helps.”

Holding a scrap corner of backing and batting, I shoved the needled through the layers and pulled. “Uh-oh.” The fat yarn stopped the needle from sliding through the layers.

Darlene’s face darkened in concern. “What’s wrong?”

“The yarn’s hard to pull through the fabric.” Like the little engine that could, I tugged, tugged, tugged making the yarn pop through. After I sewed varying lengths of yarn through the practice sandwich, my friend decided to use one and three-quarter inch ties.

I let her try looping yarn through the quilt sandwich.

She stuck the needle in and tugged. “This will be a matter for patience.” She tugged. “I’ll clip my fingernails.” She tugged. “I’ll get plastic tips for my fingers to help me grip the needle.”

By mid afternoon when I had to leave, she’d tied one knot in the center of her quilt. Two hundred twenty-four to go. But I had confidence my friend would finish the quilt. She would warm herself with its layers and memories. 

Years from now, like many people admire Jane Austen’s diamond patchwork quilt at Chawton House, Darlene’s twin grandchildren’s grandchildren will cherish her mother-daughter quilt, a family treasure worth every knot and stitch.

Darlene Reading Jane Austen Plays

Reflections on the Twelfth Week of Fall - Little Lords A-leaping

Gilbert Leaping

Kneeling on the chilly deck last Sunday, I reached into an old wash tub, and tucked prickly pine straw around the root ball of a three foot Norway spruce—this year’s Christmas tree.

My husband licked suction cups attached to a clear plastic triangle. He reached over me, pushed the cups against the sliding glass door, and disappeared around the corner. Maybe he just wanted to attach the top of the window feeder before temperatures plummeted making attachment more difficult if not impossible.

Spence returned with sunflower seeds filling the feeder’s bottom, a funnel ending in a pair of perches. 

Uh-oh. Bear food. 

“Tell your mother about the bear,” Spence had called over his shoulder while he clanked his spatula against the iron skillet making breakfast one day.

Swallowing a mouthful of oatmeal, I straightened in my chair. “You saw a bear, Charlie?”

“Yeah.” he sipped Earl Grey tea and smirked.

When he didn’t offer any details, I peppered him with questions to learn that on his midday drive back to Seneca the day after Thanksgiving, he saw a large black bear race across a fallow field about five miles from Wells Wood. 

Since then our temperatures averaged 37 °F (3 °C) for highs and 27 °F (-2 °C) for lows. The season’s first snow had melted, and we hadn’t had another laying snow. Still bear weather. Yikes. 

Shaking my head to erase the image of a bear at the sliding glass door, I scooped a handful of escaped pine straw off the deck. “Isn’t it too early for the feeder on account of bears?”

Spence slid the feeder into the grooves under its roof. “It may be too late.” He stepped back and squinted at the river willows where, in previous years, birds perched to wait for turns at the feeder. “Birds might have made other plans.”

Would we see a bear or a bird first?

Thursday morning, while Spence drove to Columbus. I stuffed shampoo and conditioner into my swim bag in the bathroom. A kitten in the great room stuttered mrr-mrr-mrah—kitten hunting chatter. A kitten would hide from a bear. I stuck my head around the bathroom door. 

Three kittens sat with noses a whisker’s width from the glass between them and the Christmas tree. Tails swished. Ears stood at attention. Ande, the biggest kitten, chattered.

A black-capped chickadee flew to the feeder, spied the kittens through the glass, and darted off.

The Cardinal Watching Ande

Woohoo! A chickadee, the scout of the winter feeding group, had found the sunflower seeds. Now it needed to perch long enough to grab a seed. In past winters, birds had skittered away at the sight of our old cats on the first day the birds spied the feeder. Then they dined in leisure. This year they had to contend with three male kittens.

The chickadee soared back.

Gilbert leapt. Instead of nabbing the bird, Gil hit the glass between the feeder and tree.

The bird fled without a seed.

Gilbert dropped to the floor.

Another chickadee zipped to the feeder.

Rills leapt, hit the glass, somersaulted in mid air, and landed facing me. His eyes glazed with determination to get the feathery-mouthful next time.

A chickadee winged in.

Gilbert leapt.

The bird took off.

A chickadee landed on the perch.

Rills leapt.

The bird skedaddled.

A chickadee perched.

Ande leapt, banged against the glass, and crashed onto the ceramic food bowl. Kitten kibble scattered across the great room floor. The kittens turned away from the door and tip-pawed through the kibble while a chickadee perched, pecked, and absconded with a sunflower seed.

Belly laughing, my fingers hit the wrong computer keys so often I hit backspace more times than I cared to count while emailing Spence. “It’s the tenth day of Christmas here with little lords a-leaping.” The leaping-fleeing-scattering details followed.

Spence emailed back. “Go black caps! Eat that seed, tell others.” 

Lugging swim gear, I left the leaping kittens. Maybe they would tire and take naps.

Two and a half hours later, I returned to bleary-eyed kittens. Their sides heaved, and they slow-walked across the great room like exhausted athletes who’d run a marathon. The level of seeds in the feeder had lowered a millimeter. I petted the kittens. “It’s okay if you guys take a nap and let the birds eat in peace.”

A chickadee swooped in. The fellas crouched by the window. They murmured mrr-mrr-mrah in harmony. None leapt. 

Sighing, I pulled the leftover trout from the refrigerator. 

All three ambled to the kitchen and leapt to the table. Their noses worked at normal speed.

One by one, I lifted them off and made a fish sandwich at the counter.

Ande Crouching under Chickadee

Three weary kittens meandered to the sofa, curled, wrapped paws around each other, and napped.

Before the sun rose Friday morning, I swiped Spence’s glass cleaning bottle from beside the wood stove and sprayed the inside of the sliding door. The ammonia smell tickled my nose, and the squeaks of a rag rubbing the glass brought the kittens. My supervisors.

Content with the inside and determined to have a clear view for a photo of my little lords a-leaping, I slipped into a winter jacket and trudged out to the deck. Cleaner sprayed, psst, and six kitten eyes peered through the wet glass. I wiped.

White flakes fluttered off the rag. The spray had frozen. Frost polka dotted the glass door. Sheesh.

I switched to a second cloth and rubbed. The frosted spray stuck like dry Gorilla Glue. Gritting my teeth and pressing so hard I wondered if I’d push the glass out of its frame, I rubbed again. 

Rills and Gilbert wandered off. Ande, my shadow, stroked his side of the glass with a paw. 

My fingers chilled and cramped. I rubbed.

Spence snuck up behind me. “It’ll come off by itself,” he grabbed the cleaner bottle, “when the sun comes out.” 

From the white pine stand, chickadees protested. Cheep, cheep, cheep.

Ignoring them, I rubbed another minute, sighed, and gave up.

The sunshine cleared the frosted cleaner. A pair of cardinals and a titmouse joined the chickadees at the feeder. 

Turning the camera sideways, I focused on the cats, tree, and birds. My septuagenarian fingers couldn’t click as fast as my little lords could leap, but they gave me plenty of opportunities for photos. After pushing the lens over a hundred times, I lugged the box of Christmas decorations from the loft to the deck.

In the balmy air, I wrapped white LED light wires around branches expecting to get pricked by the pointy spruce needles. Only one prick. The soft needles flexed under my fingers. I looped a gold garland and looked into the white pine stand for perching chickadees. No chickadees. No protests. Maybe they scavenged seeds off dried wild flowers. Balancing the box of Dad’s sand dollars on an empty deck planter, I unwrapped the ornaments and twisted their wire hooks around branches so the wind wouldn’t blow them off. The branches emitted a citrusy, evergreen fragrance. 

Saturday morning, rain drummed against the metal roof and splattered the deck. Dad’s sand dollars, on the door side of the Christmas tree, stayed dry under the eaves. I looked from the ornaments to the feeder. No birds. “Where are the birds? Is rain keeping them away?” 

Detaching Rills’s claws from his jeans, Spence set the kitten on the floor and glanced outside. “No wind. Moderate temperature. They’re probably finding food in the field.”

Mid morning, rain changed to snow. A pair of cardinals flew to the deck railing and bobbed their heads to study sleeping kittens. A goldfinch, in its tawny winter coat, perched and gobbled seed after seed. Chickadees grabbed a seed from the other side of the feeder and flew away to store the food for later. The male cardinal braved the perch and feasted. 

Sunflower seed level lowered to half full. 

Snow covered the ground—hopefully sending sated bears into hibernation. I relaxed. 

I can enjoy the birds until February when hungry, male, black bears will wake and search for bird seed.  

Ande Leaping

Reflections on the Eleventh Week of Fall - My Cups Runneth Over

Janet in the Jane Austen T-Shirt

Wednesday morning, snowflakes splattered the windshield while Jerry Nadler summarized the case for impeachment over the radio. I sped south on I-79 doubting my sanity. After spending the first seventy-one years of my life hiding cleavage—what little I had—I drove toward Grove City Premium Outlets in quest of a push-up bra which would enhance my breast size and accent my cleavage.

This push-up saga, though I didn’t know at the time, had started on a breezy day in August. I sat with other Pennwriters around a line of six end-to-end picnic tables on Presque Isle and gazed at three tall ships sail in the bay. 

Kristie, wiggling her toes in flip-flops, brandished a forkful of salad to point at my Jane Austen t-shirt—the one with a picture of Jane writing at her round table. The t-shirt advertised the 2020 Annual General Meeting. “Are you wearing a costume to the conference?”

“I don’t know. I’m not confident enough to sew a gown and . . . ” Well, buying an expensive gown to attend a banquet and ball seemed extravagant.

Kristie waved her empty fork dismissing my doubts, swallowed her bite of salad, and, louder than elementary school students shouting on the playground, said, “You have the Crawford County Grand Champion seamstress right here! Catherine can sew the dress for you.”

Six people down the line of munching writers, Catherine leaned forward and turned her head toward Kristie. “What?”

If I hadn’t been squeezed between other writers, I would have crawled under the table. So impertinent to ask for such a favor.

Kristie laughed. “You can sew a gown for Janet to attend the Jane Austen conference next year.”

“If she buys the material and lets me fit the dress, show the dress in the fair, and keep the blue ribbon, sure.”

Great deal!

After the picnic, I drove into the sunset—no snowflakes that day—to my friend Jennifer’s house in Novelty, Ohio.

She showed me a rackful of regency dresses she and her daughters wore. Stepping away from the rack, Jennifer straightened her back and centered her fists under her breasts. She pushed to force them upward. With a stern face and a low-pitched German accent, she said, “Poo-oosh-up bra. Poo-oosh-up bra.”

I giggled.

In her normal voice Jennifer explained. “You won’t have to wear a corset like they did in Jane Austen’s day, but you’ll need a push-up bra so the dress fits right. Julia Bennett, who sewed some of these dresses, told me that.” Jennifer repeated the poo-oosh-up routine, and we both giggled.

After much dithering and multiple internet searches, I chose a dress pattern, bought regency print fabric, and consulted Catherine. She didn’t have a German accent.

At the end of summer, I drove to her farm house where she leafed through thin pattern pages at her dining room table. A long-haired black cat circled Catherine’s feet while she read directions and studied which pieces to cut. “I’ll make a mock-up out of a sheet and fit it on you before I sew your dress.”

And before Catherine had the mock-up dress ready to fit, I needed to buy one of the push-and-restrain contraptions.

The thought of trying them on kept me delaying the task week after week.

Regency Fabric and Pattern

On an early October morning, with his fingers poised over his computer keyboard, my husband glanced up from his internet news-cruise. “Want to read about the ten most supportive sports bras?” 

“No.” Spence often emailed links to articles, but I didn’t need this one. “My next purchase will be a push-up bra.” 

Spence rubbed his mustache with a finger. “That’s the last step before the senior citizen bra.”

“The what?”

His eyes and finger lowered to the computer. The ends of his lips quivered. “The pull-up bra.” 

I’d guffawed then and again from the memory while the windshield wipers swiped snowflakes and I slipped into a parking space at the outlet center. 

A tinny version of “Winter Wonderland” blasted from speakers. I walked past Christmas decorated storefronts. Stuffing my stocking knit cap in one pocket of my winter jacket and my gloves in the other, I opened the door to HanesBrand. An array of underwear made from snowflake, reindeer, and Christmas wreath material greeted me. A fitting assistant, about the height of Santa’s elves, popped from behind a bikini panties display. “May I help you?”

No music. No other customers. This wouldn’t be so bad. “I need a push-up bra.”

She peered skeptically at my overstuffed jacket. “That could be a problem. Push-ups come in small sizes.”

Feeling old and hopeless, I whispered, “I’m size thirty-six B.”

“Oh.” The fitting assistant strode to the side of the store. Over her shoulder she called, “Maidenform might have one.” She lifted a hanger with a dangling, lacy white push-and-restrain contraption. Before I caught up to her, she hustled to the front of the store and pulled three more hangers off hooks. She paused with her hand on the hanger of a skimpy, red restrainer. “Why do you need the push-up?”

“For a Jane Austen conference next year. I’ll wear it under a blue regency dress.”

Eyebrows lifting, she let go of the hanger. “This won’t do. Too bad. It’s the one I wear because it’s so comfortable.” 

Giant stepping to keep up, I followed her to the dressing room. 

She opened the door. “You should have brought the dress to try with the bras.”

The cubicle had stark lighting and a six by three foot wall mirror. I stepped inside. “My seamstress wanted me to have the bra when she fitted the dress.”

The fitting assistant smirked. “Well, leave the tags on. You can bring it back before March if it doesn’t work.” She handed me the hangers. “Call me if you need anything.” She closed the door. Her footsteps hurried away.

I hung the bras on a hook and undressed from the waist up. Thick padding lined all the cups making them so firm I could use them for jello molds. I took the Maidenform off the hanger, slipped my arms through the straps, and pulled the cups over my breasts.

The breasts slipped out of the cups.

Sheesh. Spence was right. I needed a pull-up bra.

I eyed the cups. The bottom had a curved wire—no band to hold the contraption tight against my midriff and to keep the breasts in place. I leaned toward the mirror and pulled the cups over my breasts.

They slipped out again.

Double sheesh. Should I ask the fitting assistant for help or buy a corset?

I leaned further forward making my back level out at a ninety degree angle from my legs. Like wielding a net at darting butterflies, I scooped my dangling breasts into the cups. Fastening the hooks at the back, I inched up to standing and frowned at the mirror. My breasts bulged out of the top and nestled against each other. Yuck. The others might fit better. 

The tan contraption created fat bulges over, under, and around the bra.

The black one had small cups and exposed, not compacted, my floppy breasts.

Like a north pole magnet against another north pole, the second white push-up repelled my breasts. It couldn’t, wouldn’t capture them.

Sighing loud enough for the clerk to hear me back at her register, I tried the Maidenform again. No fat bulges. No escaping flesh. Pushed-up. Comfortable. 

I squinted trying to imagine if these cups, fuller than the other three sets, would show in the rectangular regency neckline. Maybe. Maybe not. Since I didn’t have another choice, I took the Maidenform off, dressed, and paid twice as much as I did for my last bra.

On the way home, sunshine glinted through lumpy clouds. I let the droning voices of testifying law professors on the radio and the humming of tires against wet pavement drown my worries about the push-up bra. I could tuck lace in the neckline to cover the bulging breasts and cleavage. But I’d keep the tags on the push-and-restrain contraption in case I had to return it and repeat the breast-slipping, fat-bulging, breast-repelling ordeal.

Push-Up Bra