The atmosphere was so palpable in his words, for he writes exquisitely of beautiful things and people and times, that I could see the haze of smoke in their air, the scent of Winter-long furs and Toujours Moi and dustings of face powder, with a little rim of unblotted lipstick on the unfiltered cigarette paper left in the ashtray.

It so reminded me of some of the women in my own family, whose great presences were punctuated by scents and colours—good perfume and wafts of Coty powder, and one Aunt whose lipstick fascinated me so as a child and teen, I could scarcely look her in the eyes, for staring at the odd configuration of her bright lips:

(from my own blog—a memory from a far time): Her red nail polish matched her lipstick, which was put on with the oddest little down-strokes side-by-side in the middle, higher than her own lipline, then by doing a big old theater-mask-mouth which stretched her bottom lip TIGHT while she did a corner-to-corner Revlon swoop (Love That Red). That lip totally covered, she bit them tight together, transferring a coat to the top lip. The original two little pointy places right in the middle stood brightly high like the tops of angel-wings, their line of demarcation flowing into the flat dryness of a sifty layer of Coty powder which clung to the downy hairs of her upper lip.

I so wondered if I might someday use one of your pictures to illustrate a post—one of the ladies with bangs and a cupid’s bow drawn tight.

Thank you for all these riches of memories—I look forward to returning to delve into your lovely archives.

rachel