Purple

A Poem By Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people’s gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

********************************************************************

Shortly after this poem was published, women all over the country started wearing purple dresses and red hats and lunching together.  They called themselves "The Red Hat Society."  

They were taking Jenny Joseph's poem literally.  If you ever saw ten women around a lunch table sporting purple and red, you know that it was a sight to behold, but too contrived to be interesting. 

The point of the poem was not that we all should wear purple dresses and red hats, but that old age might be a good time to flout conventionality and wear and do and be all the things we always secretly desired. The Red Hatters were, in my humble opinion, simply creating a new conformity, all dressing to match.

The reason this poem came to mind is that I'm picking paint colors for the exterior my house.  One of the colors I considered briefly was some shade of purple, trimmed in vanilla.   Maybe a hot pink door and yellow shutters.  

Or improve on the current stark white with a prettier white trimmed in charcoal and gold, with a door that matches pomegranate seeds...you get the picture.  

There's also the question of how my house speaks on the street.  She doesn't have size or architectural impressiveness on her side.  So she relies on colors around her, on her skin, and inside to express herself. Hot pink crepe myrtles soon.  Purple mountain laurel, now budding.  Yellow Esperanza. Blue plumbago.

Inside, a party of those same colors, rendered in paint and fabric.  So what is the costume for this season on the outside?  It's a sleep robbing decision, but it's mine to make. It starts next week, so I have a few days at the beach to decide. 

No one else but Luci and I will drive up to it every single day and notice--and according to research a dog's visual acuity with color is not her sharpest feature.  Passersby will either love it or hate it, if they notice it at all.

How I dress my house is important to me.  I hope I do her justice.