Grandma Toby

Grandma Toby was enormously influential to me. She would fly me out from Colorado for the summer to visit her back east for three or four weeks every year like clockwork. Lazy summers at the neighborhood pool, the shopping mall, the beauty parlor, and reading on the summer porch before a leisurely afternoon nap. “Think of it as a spa,” Grandma used to tell me. We’d go to the library once a week and pick out books, hers in a faded red tote bag with “Grandma” stamped on it in white letters. Neighborhood boys and I developed crushes on each other and I baked myself at the pool to a fine patina. I returned to my home in Colorado relaxed, infused with that glow that comes from no responsibilities and condoned laziness.

Grandma gave me many gifts, and sometimes I think the most important one was routine. My place at the breakfast table for example; a floral placement set with an egg, a small gold tiffany grandfather clock (that never worked, no matter how many times the clockmaker came by) and portraits of Grandma and Grandpa in the foreground. The portraits were painted in Paris while Grandpa was stationed at the French embassy. Grandma looks coolly elegant, pearls around her neck accentuating the curve of her shoulders, the point where her dress met primly in the center. She is stunning, movie star beautiful. She told me the painter made her look more beautiful, took some weight off—this is typical, even in her eighties she was concerned with her weight. Plus I believe that he’d want to paint her in the most flattering light; she always had a way of making people want to do things for her. Still, when at a restaurant or anywhere out in public she turned heads—silver grey black hair upswept weekly by Aspa, her Greek hairdresser, Chanel Coco Red lips, and a cheerful courtly manner that assumed everything was one big lark. As an adult I see the wisdom in this—treat people as if you are someone used to being served, and as someone who you are already on familiar terms with, and likely you will be shortly.

During those summers, I learned about the luxury of relaxation. We had a pace that matched: lazy mornings with the paper (well, a lazy morning for me, she’d wake up at 5), long showers, getting dressed in a very fine outfit in which to meet the outside world, an 11:00 errand, then lunch, and maybe an afternoon movie. Sometimes we exercised before going out, sharing turns on her stationary bike in her bedroom, which was set up like a ladies lounge, with her queen size bed and silk pillow (“keeps away the wrinkles”), writing desk and chaise lounge, framed by the two portraits of her children, my father and my Aunt Erica. When my turn came, I’d peddle away on the bike, with my walkman singing George Michael to myself, “and I think it would be nice, if I could touch your body, you know not every body, has got a body like you. Ba-by.” After the requisite afternoon nap (oh how I loved being young and old at the same time) we’d commiserate on the early evening perusal of the TV guide that came with Sunday’s Washington Post, plotting our nighttime activities. “How about a Chinese feast?” she might suggest, and we’d sit at the dining room table like girlfriends reading our fortunes to each other.

Grandma let me go through her trunks, and her letters. In there I found all the invitations she received in Paris; “Monsieur Lanvin requests the honor of your presence at next week’s viewing.” She had a dressmaker who’d made her terrific replications of Paris couture, and Grandpa gave her a fur so she wouldn’t feel inelegant; a milk chocolate stole with her initials inside the Chinoiserie silk brocade. I wore it on my wedding day, walking in with my father as we greeted guests.
Grandma was a diplomat’s wife, and took her hostessing duties seriously; in this role, she was a true asset. She could fluidly discuss the news of the day, the Op-Eds in that day’s Washington Post, and the latest meeting the had Pamela Harriman’s house (she wasn’t present) of the Women’s Democratic Club. Fiercely pro-choice, pro-Gay rights, she could not understand how anyone had the poor foresight to be a Republican. A favorite nephew working in the Bush White House was deemed “brilliant, for a Republican.” He invited her to the White House Christmas party and she went (“natch,” she’d said) and told me it was the first time she’d been back since the Johnson administration. I bought her new shoes for the occasion, black patent flats, but it was a wet drizzly day and she said she preferred her practical short black boots with treads.

Sometimes she’d have dinner parties. Her friends were former Diplomats and their crew—lawyers, newspaper editors, professors. They’d gather at her apartment in Chevy Chase and I’d man the makeshift bar—a card table with a tablecloth, next to the piano. She’d drink wine spritzers (chardonnay and Poland Spring) and the men liked scotch or cape cods. The conversation would invariably turn to politics. Hillary Clinton was on Meet the Press last week and the room was in agreement “Hillary has fat legs!”

“Absolutely right,” piped in Glendy, the editor. She caught my eye and as if accusation, “She needs to wear longer skirts, it’s an eyesore!”

Some people are more comfortable with the older generation—their calm sense of themselves, their well-worn authority, their easy adoration of youth. I always considered myself one of them, but it gave me a shy seeming imperial point of view when I returned home. Regardless, their conversations always had that high-low feel that I’ve come to associate with intellectuals.

…To be Continued in Next Blog Post!

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