Sweet Texas Tea

Well I am from Texas and in honor of National Iced Tea Day (US), I will share some sweet Texas tea! We like it sweet. 

Boil 6 regular size plain Lipton Tea bags. Let steep a minute or two (my grandmother used Lipton loose tea). Pour into a large tea jar or pitcher. Add 1 cup sugar (yep, it’s too sweet to be healthy), stir until sugar is dissolved. Fill with water. Lemons are optional, although a lot of Southerners do take lemons, I do not.

Serve it in the largest glass you can find because we do everything big in Texas and that includes our iced tea glasses. My husband has on many occasions requested that I, “just put it in that big jar,” (usually a wide-mouth 32 oz Mason jar). It goes down fast in the hot Texas weather in a large family. Every day, my grandmother made two large sun-tea sized jars, that’s how much iced tea we went through in a day! Pick your favorite yard chair and enjoy!

The Freedom to Dream

Something of grave importance occurred yesterday when I wrote “Ode to Virginia”. I was reading "A Room of One's Own" and I was so inspired by Woolf's work and her use of words that even though I have been writing since I was thirteen (exactly forty years), I came to an understanding of all that I am through the written word. I have always "toned down" my writing. No more. I have found my voice. My words are my spirit and they have taken wings to fly where my voice has always longed to go, above and beyond the ordinary and the mundane, into the realm of voices that once spoke our beautiful language with the utmost sincerity, respect and imaginative usage. So although I am going to share a contemporary woman's story, it will be in a long-lost voice of the past. Floral, delicate and gently flowing to the ear as is much of nature should we take the time to listen.

What has happened here is that I have become a proponent of the English language mixed with the imagination, both of which I choose to use now in my journal as well as other writings. It will give me good practice and keep the juices flowing and the lines open. I am going to dream, and I am going to dream big.  I am going to write, and I am going to write big.

It has been my good fortune to have lived at least a comfortable life, though not always secure, until last year at which time due to a low economy taking years of toll on our family business, we lost everything. Given that we have three dogs and suffered a foreclosure, the simplest answer seemed to be the RV life so we sold most everything we had (except my grandmother’s treasured heirlooms) and defiantly packed ourselves into a small RV. We hit the highway with absolutely no clue as to the future or even the coming week. We spent about two months traveling in New Mexico and southern Colorado until we finally landed in the town where we had previously gone to college in southern New Mexico. It has since been a year. We are still compounded in our little house in the woods as I call it (not to intrude on Laura Ingalls Wilder but that’s kind of what it is). It has been a year of pain, growth, magic and new experiences that one would certainly never come to in the safety of a home. I believe now that it is time I began to document this journey and to tell the tale, wherever it may lead. It has at least lead me to my senses and out of over a decade of fog and disenchantment regarding life in general. The fresh air has been healing to both my husband and me and the detachment from the chaos that we previously called “life” has now brought a renewed sense of spirit and purpose.

Early morning with the freedom of the sun on my back and a brisk dog walk awakens the senses as the day begins. Another day filled with the day-to-day domestic duties such as they have developed in this situation, though for a woman, regardless of in what situation she lives, they are much the same: the planning and preparation of meals, housework and laundry. It is a vicious, never-ending cycle, such as it is: one of the cycles of life, all done for our survival, support and creature comfort. I did work for a time on some photos of a band box I had made nearly twenty-five years ago; writing up instructions as well on how to create one’s own. Oddly enough it is the only thing from my past that I had handmade that I thought to bring with me. I do not know why I brought it, a comforting sentiment I suppose of all that once was and was lost.

While sitting in the noon sun letting my hair dry beneath the warm rays of a New Mexico summer day, closing my eyes I was immediately transported to the Mediterranean where in my dreams I long to be. I could feel the sun on my body there as well as here; I looked out to a harbour filled with beautiful white monstrous cruise ships, glistening in the Mediterranean noon sun. Perched high above the harbour, I was surrounded by the white stucco houses and inns dotting the hillside. I sipped my Greek coffee and closed my eyes, luxuriating in the beauty of the simple yet the exotic.

The freedom to dream may come at an expensive price but as long as one has a good cup of coffee to accompany it, well that is truly the sweetest crumpet that life has to offer. Good coffee, good company and the freedom to dream.

Cheers,

Cheryl Bruedigam

copyright Cheryl Bruedigam 2014 

The Fabulous Flappers

The Fabulous Flappers

by Cheryl Bruedigam

Actress Louise Brooks 1927

Flappers were the non-conformists of the roaring 1920s, originating with a film in the United States. According to Wikipedia, "Flappers were a "new breed" of young Western women in the 1920s who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior." They openly smoked, drank, rode bicycles and went into bars and they danced with ferocious abandon.

Violet Romer in a flapper dress c. 1915

This was a time when women in America had just received the vote, stuffy religious priorities were changing due to the Scope's Trial and women were overturning traditional roles. In America, the word flapper originally referred to female adult voters who might vote differently than men however it soon evolved to en-capsulize a feminine revolution in the west (in 1890 England it had referred to a young female prostitute who "flapped" on her back). Religious piety, homemaking and the former acceptable women's roles of the Victorian period were pushed into history as the flappers pulled us on into the twentieth century.  

French fashion designer Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel

Their fashions were heavily influenced by the designs of Coco Chanel, a non-conformist herself who soon had women's clothing changing the face of acceptability everywhere. The flappers dresses were generally above the knee, sometimes beautifully fringed in lovely fabrics. Their hairstyles were the new boyish cuts and bobs, and heavy makeup drew in wise-eyed young women with darkened kohl eyes and red "bee-sting" lips. Little beaded handbags would complete the look.

A "flapper's" beaded bag belonging to my grandmother,, mid-1920s

These women helped to change the face of women of women everywhere, setting in motion long-lasting freedoms that eventually became the norm., They were intelligent free-thinkers who were their own person. They helped to set the pace for women of the future, paving the road a step further for women's equality in America and other countries of the West. "Hats on" to the Flappers!