It’s Christmas/Kwanza/Hannukah season – and dozens more holidays around the world. Peace and joy!
Tis the season of celebration. Tis the season of frenzied preparation and sumptuous feasting: go-go-go, gulp!
Tis the season of nostalgia. Tis the season of angst.
Tis the season to be jolly for some… To others its the season to stir the pot.
Last weekend ‘Jackie’ arrived in movie theaters with all of the aplomb and style the gracious woman deserved. She was an icon of class, a soft-spoken First Lady who moved out of the usual passive role of her office to escort American citizens around the White House, as her home and the nation’s. She demonstrated firm-jawed and resolute widowhood, before Onassis married her and spirited her away on his yachts.
The film follows Jackie Kennedy in the days when she was First Lady in the White House and her life following the assassination of her husband, President John F. Kennedy, in 1963. It focuses on Theodore H. White’s Life magazine interview with the widow at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
The film stirred an emotional pot, coming just days after we of a certain generation commemorated Kennedy’s impactful death. Everyone I’ve ever spoken with about Kennedy’s assassination recalls precisely where they were and who shared the news. How we kept vigil via media, as we did later after the Twin Towers in New York fell on 9/11.
The movie photo evoked a pleasant memory, too.. Me imitating the gracious First Lady’s style with a suit of vibrant blueish teal boucle wool. I sewed the beautiful jacket and dress using a pattern precisely emulating her garment on the movie poster.
Though my pearls were fake, my saunter down the runway and back wasn’t. With my strawberry blonde hair styled as closely to hers as I was able, I held my head aloft, alone on the vast stage in front of hundreds of people. I felt like an eternity passed.
The August heat cooked me good inside the wool, and I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. But breathe I did, in time with my careful steps. I didn’t often wear two-inch pumps.
I won grand champion ribbons at the Indiana State Fair for my sewing and my sashay. My style equaled hers in middle America. Even my freckles were proud.
What memories did the film evoke for you, Constant Reader, in this season of nostalgia and angst?
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