The Hand Mirror And My Mother's Bun
Tuesday, November 10, 2015
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| Filomena de Irureta Goyena |
As I make
myself forward to a future that is so evidently a much shorter one than it once
was I find myself thinking of my past and all my friends and relatives that I
shared that past with. Increasingly those friends and relatives of more recent
times have suffered a much shorter prospectus for a future than mine.
When I
come into my present house the first thing I see is a Sterling silver mirror on the front table. I
have affection for it because it was my mother’s.
Because
we lived in a small house in my youth I believe I must have had a day-bed of
sorts. The fact is that I remember my mother getting ready to go to teach
school. She would be in front of her tocador
applying makeup and doing her hair. This was during the late 40s and early
50s. She had very straight hair which she hated. She wore a bun behind her much
like that of her contemporary, Eva Perón. For those who might not know, in
order to have that bun, you had to carefully wrap your long hair around an
artificial (it may have been real hair) doughnut-shaped bun. She often would
raise her voice in desperation when it didn’t work and she would have to try
again. She used the silver hand mirror to look at how the bun was going. Before
dealing with the bun she had a beautiful silver brush (which I also have) and
she would brush and brush her hair. She often told me how her aunt Ventura would comb and comb her hair and
she (my mother as a very young girl) would cry in pain. Ventura
would state, “In order to be a lady one must learn to experience pain.”
Soon
after we arrived in Mexico in 1954 the bun disappeared and I never heard my
mother complain again.
