The bar I recently set up and motherblogger is mentioned in the Time’s Home section in a story about the super fun bar cart trend. Unfortunately, the wrong url was printed in the story, but they fixed it online.

When Maria, the reporter for the Times was interviewing me, I realized that I received a bar cart one Christmas from Santa. I had forgotten about it, but while we were talking I remembered coming downstairs one Christmas morning to find an orange plastic cart with metal trim and bright shiny wheels decked out with a tea set and glasses. The mod tangerine plastic gleamed next to the tree lights and even though I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t even know a present this chic existed in child size— it was a wildly reassuring gift. The cart was my mother’s way of saying to me, I know who you want to be and who you will become. That summer I was voted clumsiest camper at Camp Chinqueka, but by giving me that cart, my mom was telling me that I could also be Grace Kelly.

My mom is still that kind of gift giver and she manages to surprise me every Christmas. When I was in college I was too controlling and specific about what I wanted so she stopped taking risks and I received lots of gift cards. It was what I had asked for, but when I’d open the little card it felt like our connection was diffused into an institutionalized transaction. Parent = Shopping spree at Anthropologie. It made me feel like a favorite neice, not her daughter and her gifts had been her unique way of mothering me.

So I stopped telling her what I wanted for Christmas because I didn’t want checklist gifts. I wanted her imagination. And it worked. In the years since, she has given me a vintage Tutu from a performance of Sleeping Beauty; a limited edition of The Flair book; a fur scarf; a set of Leeds china. This year she gave me a ruffled purse. Where I’ll use it, I have no idea, but it’s her way of saying, you need this as much as a new pair of yoga pants. All her gifts are her way of guiding my taste while boosting my confidence to be who I wanted to be in a way that only she can.

When my mom gives me advice, sometimes I can hear the worry in her voice. Her gifts, however, are clear they all say I believe in you. And often enough, her presents are ideas of myself that  haven’t even occurred to me. So it was funny to realize, that while Maria was interviewing me, I had said I set up the bar because I was having two parties and I didn’t want anyone crowding up our tiny kitchen, but I really set it up because I wanted to have that life that she whispered into my ear when I was seven on Christmas morning.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 1:54 pm and is filed under Happiness through home decor, Life changing products. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.