Shoes, Bags, Hats

Last week, I turned over the final month on my 2014 calendar. Finished. Done. Goodbye.  But this was no ordinary calendar.  Each month held a picture of one item—shoe, bag, hat—from the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The pictures are “embellished” reproductions including January’s evening shoe, designed by Roger Vivier in 1992, a gold-colored pump by Mabel Julianelli (1950’s) for May, a Brazilian evening clutch in silk, glass, pearls and rhinestones (1944) for August, a Madame Alphonsine straw hat with pink silk roses (1910) for October. It's gorgeous, with raised panels of color and beads around the edges of purses and on the vamps of shoes, with ribbons and paper flowers on hats.  Every month I turned my calendar to a new page and gazed with delight at the latest bag or shoe or hat to appear.  And it's particularly funny because my own shoes are all sensible, my purse is practical, my hats are to keep my head warm.  Still, I drool with envy at these works of art.

That’s not the reason this calendar is so special. This calendar was given to me on the occasion of my retirement at the end of the summer a year-and-a-half ago by a colleague of mine who had retired a year ahead of me. Diane, a school counselor, was a beautiful, stylish woman who was also incredibly kind and thoughtful.  By thoughtful, I mean both considerate and insightful. When we were both still working, she would drop by my office and ask how I was doing.  If I was down, she would share a positive comment from a student that brightened up my day. She always knew the exact right thing to say. Everybody thought so.

At my retirement party, we laughed together and talked about the future.  I welcomed her gift and thanked her.  We promised that we would get together, have lunch, talk about “life after work”.  But September and October and most of November went by and we didn't. Then it was Thanksgiving and then Christmas. I looked at my calendar in its box and thought how nice it would be to get it out at the beginning of 2014 and to call Diane and invite her to lunch and thank her again. Then, between Christmas and New Year's, I got the call. Another colleague had heard from Diane’s husband. When getting off the train after a Christmas visit to her daughter's in Chicago, Diane had experienced a severe headache and loss of muscle control. Her husband rushed her to the hospital, but she was gone. Stroke at age 78. She left behind a husband, a daughter and son-in-law, and three grandchildren, one of whom was a small baby she had met for the first time at Christmas. We were all, of course, shocked. Such a vital, interesting woman.  What a shame, what a loss.

Usually when a new year begins, I immediately set out the calendars.  After Diane's death, I put off opening her calendar. I’m not sure why. It was towards the end of January before I broke the seal and turned the page to the first month. There was the Roger Vivier evening shoe—gold stiletto, open heel, strap on the instep, open toe, with a pouf on the vamp and sparkles at the end of each filament of the pouf.  It included a history of the shoe—maker, date made, date given, materials, that sort of thing. I looked at that calendar page a long time. It was an amazing calendar; I had never seen one like it. I thought how very odd it felt to be finally opening this gift that Diane would never get to see or to hear me talk about.  How ironic, I suppose, that she was gone before I even opened it. Every month, I turned the page to a new picture of a new shoe, bag or hat. Every month I read the history of this artistic representation of a fashion accessory. Every month I thought of Diane and thanked her for the gift. Of course, I always wondered why she had chosen that for me. At some point, perhaps September, I realized something I should have known much earlier. She didn’t pick it because it was my style; it was more her style. She chose it because she liked it, and she hoped I would like it, too. I wish I could have said how much I liked the calendar.  I wish I could have said how it made me think of things I hadn’t considered before, like fashion as artistic expression. And I wish that I had called Diane to say, “Let’s go to lunch.” 

Now, as I close the book on 2014, I realize she has been gone a year. I think that year must have been very hard for her family and her close friends. And I think that maybe I’ll keep the calendar on my desk and turn through it to look at the shoes, bags, and hats one more time.  The dates will be wrong, but who cares?  Diane would laugh at me, and that would be just fine.