Five favourite things since my childhood: DRESSES

 4. DRESSES

I have always been very sensitive to the different combinations of colours. That is why it has always been such a relief for me when after a dull grey winter spring is coming with its clear blue sky, fresh green grass and a variety of flowers. And that is why I was so delighted when my aunt used to bring me multi-coloured pieces of fabric from her plant. She worked as a milling machine operator. It was a really hard masculine job but more or less well-paid. They received this cloth for wiping their hands and my aunt chose from a big pile the most attractive bright pieces for me. I loved to sew dresses for my dolls from them. 

 

Dresses – that was it. Every girl who began to realize her sex adored them. The ideal of femininity was a young princess in a magnificent frock with a long wide skirt and ruffles, her wavy hair on her shoulders and a little golden crown on her head.

We lived at the edge of the city and our roads were almost deserted there at that time. So I drew a lot of princesses with a piece of chalk on the road not far from our house. I was skillful in drawing and my friends often asked me to draw pretty paper dolls for them. These dolls were wearing swimming costumes but you could draw and cut out a lot of paper dresses for them. It was such an absorbing occupation! And of course we were very envious when one of us came in a new lovely dress. It was difficult to take our eyes away from it and not to look at it from time to time in secret. 

There weren't enough nice frocks in our shops at that time. So our women used to sew their own dresses. My mother made our dresses herself too. She was not a very good dressmaker. There wasn't any stability in her sewing. I remember some of her dresses which were really good but most of them had some faults and usually she didn't want to correct them. I don't know maybe she had not been able to. 

 

Another recollection when my mother hurt my feelings very badly was connected with her needle work. She had sewn a summer dress for me from slightly glittering white cotton material. It was winter and my mother didn't want me to wear it of course. I pleaded her to allow me to put this lovely dress on and to walk around our flat for a while. She wanted me to stop pleading and threatened to destroy it but I didn't believe her. The story with the ice-cream didn't teach me anything. So she seized a pair of scissors and cut my dress into pieces. I don't remember my feelings after that, thank God – only a vague recollection of disbelief that someone could behave like that. 

 

So it was not surprising that I loved my aunt more than my mother in my early childhood. But as I grew older things changed. I discovered that my aunt, who was really kind and loving, wasn't interested in astronomy. She believed that all stars were planets and were shining because they reflected the sunlight. I tried to prove to her that most of the stars were similar to our own sun but failed and was really upset and disappointed in her and in my ability to explain something.

My mother on the other hand could understand such things and she was an attentive listener. Every day I spent one or two hours telling her about my day at school, other planets, stars, aliens and all interesting things I had learnt from books. We became very close at that period of our lives. Things changed dramatically once more when I met my future husband. My mother couldn't forgive me my marriage. But it was another story from the other adult life.

1. THE SNOW
2. THE NEW YEAR CELEBRATION
3. THE ICE CREAM