Till Sunbeams Find You

My Quarantine Nighttime Routine 

To begin one must separate hair into smaller sections. 

Take a small section and hold the hair straight from the scalp.

Roll each curler carefully; winding firmly not tightly and making sure that no hair escapes the curl. 

Clip curler closed at the base of the head. 

Carefully remove makeup using cold cream, coco nut oil, or a makeup wipe.

*Cue Palmolive commercial voice*

To bring beauty even while you sleep do what thousands of women all over the country are doing every day. Carefully apply  moisturizer morning and night for healthy, brighter looking skin. A lovely complexion is yours to win! 

Cover curlers with a nightcap or silk headscarf to ensure that curlers stay in place while sleeping.

And an excerpt from this not so shocking book that gave me a laugh

"The shock to a sensitive man's feelings, which now occurs, is likely to send him to a lunatic asylum for life.

The bride's head is covered with a network of large, shiny wire gadgets, resembling safety pins, much enlarged. They pull her hair so hard that her eyes are all squinched up. This alters her expression so much that he doesn't at first recognize her. She is wearing a pretty peignoir, over a new pink nightgown-- the costliest in her trousseau. But he doesn't even see these things. His eyes travel down from her hair to her face. And her face is like a leper's, as white as snow!

When the first shock passes, he realizes that this is the way she is going to look to him every night of their lives. He has heard about curlers and cream. But until he marries, no woman has dared to show them to him. His mother, his sisters, etc, have been too anxious to preserve his good opinion. His wife, on the other hand, feels free to behave naturally."

And why, my dear reader, shouldn't she?

To My Third Grade Self

 When I first looked at these pictures my first thought was delete. I look fat.

It took a conscious effort for me to stop myself from the internal refrain fat, fat, fat. A conscious effort not to delete.

And, if I would have taken these a year ago, they would be gone. Permanently erased because there's 'something wrong' with the body that I have. That curves mean cellulite and worth is measured in weight.

These are hard words to write because for so long I've surrounded myself in self-loathing and comparing my body type to what I thought I was supposed to look like.

It's interesting to me the words that we use and how often we treat weight as if it correlates with value. Greetings like 'you look so thin' and 'have you lost weight,' heightening this idea that when my body is thinner I look prettier. That's when the obsessive thoughts come. When I notice the flaws in my appearance and obsess over what I weigh, how I look. Body dysmorphia whispering over and over that word. Fat, fat, fat, fat. I'm anxious around those people, obsessively thinking about what I'm wearing and what I look like. Noticing as they watch out of the corner of their eye what I eat and what I don't eat until I feel anxious enough to throw up.

There are times when I look at my body and I see stretchmarks as signs of growth and scars as stories  and others where all I see is too much skin. There are times when my body has been happiest and healthiest at its heaviest. There have been times when anxiety and depression caused me to lose sleep, weight, and myself.

This year I would do 'dot your eye and cross your tea parties' when my little third graders passed off their cursive letters. There's nothing cuter than a group of 8 year olds gathered around a table practicing sipping apple juice through tea cups and daintily eating desserts, cucumber sandwiches, and whatever other delicacies I had on hand. It was during one of these parties that I noticed that one of my students wasn't acting like the others. While I was surrounded by students enjoying themselves, freely eating and chit chatting away she was quietly nibbling the same apple slice that she had been since the start of the party.

As the rest of the students slowly drifted out to recess she started chatting with me and eating at the lunch on her plate. I ate with her and we talked about all of the normal third grade things until she got very quiet.

"Miss Edgar... do you think I'm fat?"

It took me by surprise and instantly my heart ached. I asked her why she would ever ask that and she responded that a boy had told her at recess that she was a 'fatty.' Words have power. She told me that she watched the other kids eat and that she didn't eat more than they did.

In that moment I felt her pain and I understood more what my Mom must have felt all the times I have cried to her about my body.

Very, very carefully I chose my words. I told her about how her body was strong. How it helped her to move and how it helped her to learn. I told her how proud I was of her for reacting with kindness even when others were mean. We had been reading Wonder so we talked about Auggie and how what we look like doesn't matter, how we act is what matters. I hope that what I told her was what she needed to hear. I hope that she felt that her worth was less of what she looks like and more of who she is.

Ever since that conversation I have been trying to be more conscious of my internal monologue, thinking more of what I would say to my third grade self. I want to be a role model for my students of loving and accepting them and to do that I have to love and accept myself.

So here I am on this continuous journey of learning to love myself and instead of deleting my pictures deleting the mentality that there is something wrong me.

Outfit Details  
Hat:Vintage Estate Sale (?)
Dress: Vintage Thrifted $6
Salt water sandals (basically my favorite shoes since 1996): Saltwaters Website
Sweater: Thrifted, $3
Necklace: Vintage, Thrifted $1
Purse: Similar

Picture In a Locket

A locket. 

Perhaps the most intimate thing that you can wear. Inside holds a moment- a captured memory of a loved one that you wear close to your heart to remember what you have, how you have grown. Grainy photographs of lovebirds forever locked away with the click of the clasp. 

I've always had an affinity for lockets. Something you wear that has a deeper meaning. A hidden secret that is precious to only you. I have had three memorable lockets in my life. 

The first was given to me by my names sake, Coco. Tiny, golden, and very delicate. A treasure because of the giver and for the moment in my life that represents. That locket will forever hold her picture. Coco was known for her legacy of love; her unconditional acceptance of all those she met. Her grace. She will always be with and I feel her love continually surrounding me. My mom has always said that "A heart is not measured by how much you love, but how much you are loved by others," and Coco was so loved.

I received the second while I was far away from family terribly homesick and tired. It came with a letter tied in green lace from my Momma. "My Dearest Daughter, My Own Cora. I love you always my precious Cora Noelle, Coco Birdy, Sweet Daughter and Darling of Mine." As I read the letter, so far from home, I clutched to my heart a locket containing Helge Knudsen Hogan. Helge was incredible. Her faith-- even amidst the most dire of times including the loss of multiple children-- astounds me. As my Mother wrote "As you bear this locket, think upon those who have gone before you, especially Helge. Think of her devotion to her husband and her love for her family. She was willing so sacrifice everything, her very life if need be, for her family." I bear the locket holding Helge's picture alongside my own knowing the significance it holds. 

And this, the third. A necklace that truly has no connection to me. During WWII sweetheart jewelry, including lockets, became increasingly popular. Jewelry that showed not only patriotism, but a certain amount of devotion and promise. When I saw this locket, with a broken clasp and fading pictures, my heart leapt. Though I have no connection to the couple my heart ached for them. Who were they? The locket says USN. United States Navy. Perhaps a locket given with a promise to return home? The promise not to forget? The promise that the wearer was someone to come home to? 

Though no connection of mine I wear this couple's locket so they will not be forgotten. I wear it and think of the love they must have shared hoping that someday I will have a sweetheart locket of my own. 

He gave you his picture in a locket
That you wore around your neck
Left it right beside your heart
So you would not forget
The way it felt when he held your hand
And you swore that you would never take it off
And the butterflies you felt said it all
You were falling for the boy inside your locket

Back in forty three, the brown-eyed boy went overseas
And had to leave town for a little while
He swore he’d marry you
As soon as the war was through
You would be his wife
Standing in the pouring rain
You cried as you watched him ride away

But everyday
You had his picture in a locket
That you wore around your neck
Left it right beside your heart so you would not forget
Left it right beside your heart so you would not forget

-The Locket, Lauren Alaina 

Outfit details
Sweater: Thrifted, $4
Knit Skirt: Thrifted, 80's Vintage $4
Shoes: Thrifted, B.A.I.T $6
Hat: Local Vintage Shop $7.50
Purse: Thrifted, Vintage $3
Locket: Ebay, Vintage USN locket $12