I wear an apron most days. Not just for cooking and baking, like you may expect, but for painting — for art. I passed by a mirror just now and saw myself in my apron, the little royal blue one with a row of pockets, and I quickly remembered the aprons from my childhood, icons of the 60s “housewife.” 

The pockets were usually trimmed with scrap pieces of RikRak and filled with small household items picked up along the ways of her day and sorted through at the end of it, when it then hung on a hook near the kitchen, waiting for duty the next morning, ready to once again, shield the splatters of her day. 

My grandmother, my dad’s mom, had beautiful aprons that she made with scrap pieces of fabric, RikRak, and colorful buttons. They were always there protecting her homemade dress from chicken frying and whorls of all-purpose flour. My mamae, my mom’s mother, wore aprons too. I don’t know if she made hers but they competently took her through her days in the kitchen just the same, baking sweet tarts and cooking couvillions.

My own mother wore an apron also, mostly on Thanksgiving and Easter, protecting holiday clothes from cheese sauces and turkey basting. I have a vision of her in her apron, a image that says “mother.”  There were clothespins, bobby pins, banana magnolia pods, or just something she might need in the pockets of her apron. Always, it was an expression of home. 

I wear one now for painting, gardening and, of course, for cooking. When I do, I love that it becomes a little toolbox for me — collecting things in the pockets, things I need or squirrelling small things I find in the house that belong somewhere else — wiping wet hands with its skirt, gathering eggs, stashing empty seed packets and feeling reflective in it — wondering why I don’t include it in my day more often. But, like so many other household icons — the apron may be disappearing with diaper pins and Simplicity patterns. 

It appears the groundhog may have been right, spring seems to be peeping around the brief and windy wall of winter. My fruit trees are beginning to bud and the field is covered with yellow wild flowers. I have heard the mating calls of the robins. I will begin to look for their nests in unusual places like in my old garden shed, boots that were left outside or some place that has not been disturbed for a while. They don’t seem to mind being near people. This makes me happy because spotting  a blue robin egg is one of the most wonderful things to discover.

There will be a full moon on the 20th of March, the first day of spring. This moon is named the Full Worm Moon and it will be a supermoon, the last of the three consecutive supermoons. I hope it will be a crystal clear night that will have concluded a beautiful spring day, one filled with mating calls of early spring and thoughts of apron strings from long ago.

 

PAM SHENSKY is a wife and mom to five.