Sheers

Just remember, this is FICTION. Any similarity to my acutal mother is purely coincidental.

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My mother always loved the sheers on the front windows of our house. It didn't matter that she didn't own the house and they looked like granny curtains, what mattered was that somehow she had made it in the world of Suzy-Homemaker and Good Housekeeping because her front windows looked proper.

I remember the day that she installed them. She must have stared at the instructions for hours, holding a screwdriver in one hand and a hammer in the other. They were the only two tools she felt she'd mastered. Advanced tools like levels and wrenches were beyond her grasp--strangers lurking in the rear sections of the hardware store where only men belong. Once she had digested the elaborate drawings, she started in to hanging the track. I thought it was crooked, but I would've never told her. She would have cried and I can't stand it when she cries.

Sitting at my laptop now, contemplating the nuances of my own existence, I think of the word "sheer" and wonder who the heck decided it applied to curtains. In the dictionary, I found references to unmitigated qualities, exclusivity, pureness, and vertical extremes, but nothing about big, flimsy curtains that barely cover a window. The hip things to install now are roller blinds with the ugliest valences ever constructed. The last time I shopped in that section of Home Depot, I discovered that they actually sell roller blinds that behave like sheers. In the daytime, you can see out but people can't see in. At night, people can see in and you can't see out. Just like sheers. I guess they're the cool version of the old classic. We've finally stepped out of the 1950's ladies and gentlemen. Let's all buy roller blinds.

Okay, back to my mother. After all, she's the sheer lover. The curtains had two components. The inside part was white, with a kind of embroidery thing going on. The outside layer was another set of sheers that were pink. Man, I've hated that colour my whole life and I think those sheers are to blame. Why would anyone need two curtains? The only place I've ever seen the two curtain fiasco is in hotel rooms.

Maybe that's what my mother was going for? The hotel look?

Who knew?