5/4/20, Mother’s Day

Hi Everyone,

How are you doing in confinement? Hanging in? Chafing at the bit? Cabin fever? Or doing okay and settled in? I find that there are ups and downs and some days are better than others. The rumors and the doomsayers make it much harder. And talk of some deconfinement eventually gives us hope that life will return to normal again. Being out in the world again sounds a bit tricky, and obviously not as safe as full confinement, but full lockdown has its challenges too. We will just have to learn how to protect ourselves when we are out in the world again. The masks, which they told us we didn’t need at all in the beginning and were supposedly useless, have now become mandatory (in France anyway), so people are scurrying to find them, and they are nearly impossible to find in France. It still stuns me to realize how fast the world unraveled. 10 weeks ago life was still normal, a week later, the roof fell in around the world, and now we’re all locked up at home. I hope you’re holding up, and having Face Time, Zoom and Skype with absent family and friends, doing puzzles, reading, watching videos and movies, cooking, exercising, and doing whatever you can to relax from the stress and stay occupied. I think people the world over are getting very tired of being locked up, but for now it seems what we have to do to stay safe and protect others. This will all end eventually. Soon, I hope.

This week is a big deal, with Mother’s Day at the end of the week. It will be the first time EVER (since I was 19, when my first daughter was born), that I will not be with my children, any of my children, for Mother’s Day, which I have to admit will be REALLY hard. We will Face Time for sure on that day, and we will celebrate it at a later date when I get home. Mother’s Day without them won’t be a celebration. My mother has been gone for 14 years, so I’m used to not having a mother’s day with my mother, but I have never had one without my children. And Mother’s Day is my favorite holiday, since I get celebrated, and presents—-and I don’t have to get a year older!!! What a perfect holiday!!  And my children always spoil me!!

My new hardcover “The Wedding Dress” came out a week ago, and I hope that it seemed like a good Mother’s Day gift for your mothers and grandmothers. And I hope you have time to read it too. It’s a four generation saga about the four very different women in the family who wear the same dress, in each generation.

Weddings are a delicate subject now too, since all the April, May, and June weddings (and even July perhaps?) have had to be postponed, because of the pandemic, which is an emotional disappointment too. Dates in late summer, the fall, next winter and even next year have been chosen, and I know many brides, and even one in our family, who are sad to postpone their weddings, but what is happening in the world is even bigger, and it just can’t be helped. Weddings have to take a backseat to the pandemic, and people’s lives and safety. So we are all trying to be flexible and optimistic about changes of personal plans. This is definitely a crazy time in the history of the world.

Take good, good care of yourself, stay safe and follow the rules in Lockdown, as we make our way through these unusual and often scary times. We will get through this, and in the meantime, I’m thinking of you and send you much love, and I hope it’s a peaceful week, and a Wonderful Mother’s Day, even if it’s on Skype, Zoom or Face Time. Have a great week!!

lots of love, Danielle