Accidental Diary Post

Suddenly a tiny change. Anything. Something. A breath of fresh air, a window opens. An extra five dollars in the bank account. Suddenly things look up again, the impossible not so outrageous. I had cement reality boots on but now the cement is loose clay, I wriggle out.  I find some sexy stilettos.

Summer sweeps in and everything looks more hopeful. Maybe I will become a lady detective and travel  to exotic places and sip tea out of a funny cup and feel a different breeze from under a different tree. I fantasize about being a female Hercule Poirot but realize it is not so terrible to settle as someone who only pretends to be Hercule Poirot. I admit it: I'm a fantasist, an optimist, a dreamer, a joke teller. This world is full of people. People I want to love and make happy. But many strangers are frightening and the truth is I just can't make everyone happy or magically give everyone peace and force them to get along. I revert into my own world where Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Louis Armstrong sing theme songs for me, where all around me are possibilities...imaginary friends amid the faces of real people I've never met. I paint the world rosy. I know how stupid I must sound. But if utter happiness and hope are found in the process of regaining my utter lunacy, then why fix a method that isn't broken? I put on clothes that make me happy, I act like a buffoon because it makes me happy, and I try to make other people happy, because it makes me happy.

It's easy to waste time saying the world is ugly. Terrible things happen, tragedy will always exist, but if I can just focus on making my day fun for myself and others, if I can throw caution to the wind in lieu of being ridiculous, of feeling giddy for no reason, perhaps I'm giving life a little meaning, if just for a moment. Even now I'm embarrassed by the overwhelming positivity of this post, but then, why throw a shadow? Why feel guilty? Things are okay, I feel okay. It's okay to foolishly embrace joy, to feel thankful for what we have. For the first time in longer than I care to admit, I feel okay about where and who I am, and slowly but surely I feel myself climbing closer to the mother of all wisdom: that I don't need anyone's approval but my own.

The Healing Powers of Hepburn

Art by Cecila Sanchez

 When I say Hepburn I refer to Audrey Hepburn first and Katharine second. Both of them are my imaginary best friends in their unique ways though truly Audrey was my first love. When I was younger I watched her movies over and over in an almost religious fashion. And over five years ago when I went through my first heartbreak over my first love I probably watched Breakfast at Tiffany's at least four times a week. Even if I was sometimes awoken by the party scene when Audrey yells "TIMBERRR!" as Mag Wildwood drunkenly falls to the floor with a resounding thunk, the melodies of Henry Mancini lulled me to sleep and comforted me. Something about Audrey Hepburn being graceful and beautiful and silly. Her simple glamour, her spirit. This legendary woman I never met who lived through WWII as a child and transported messages to the Allies and ate bread made of grass and studied ballet but became a movie star. She was famous but she seemed like a friend. A beautiful friend who picked me up and told me to walk out the door looking fabulous and somehow everything would be okay. Strange that a movie star, portraying a character in a movie, could somehow cheer me up the way people I knew in real life couldn't.

And today, when I didn't want to get out of bed, I put on Breakfast at Tiffany's again. The notes of Moon River, her back to the camera, her giant hair. Givenchy. One of the most beautiful dresses ever designed. This beautiful woman. This imperfect character, all alone, eating a Danish. And suddenly, again, I know everything's going to be all right. Somehow. It's a piece of art. A piece of fiction. It's Hollywood and it's "just" a movie...but something about it is my gospel, and I am forever thankful for the fantasies that get me out of bed each day. I'm going to go put on some make up and go to work. I hope whoever reads this is having a lovely day. I'm going to be okay, and so are you.

Ramble on Womanhood and Beauty, whatever that is.

I was sitting here looking over some photos I took recently and considering the angles on one (somewhat unflattering in my opinion) and my face in another (black and white, my hair and make up done..I think I look a bit lovely, honestly). I start thinking about beauty (that huge monster of a word) and the way women think of themselves in regard to it. It makes me so sad to think how some women constantly belittle themselves over this ridiculous idea that to be pretty or beautiful they must look like someone else, that being themselves, that the faces and bodies they were given are second-rate, are wrong. Maybe I was raised with insanely supportive parents (very likely). From an early age I was constantly complimented by my parents as well as strangers. I wasn't the Smartest or a baby pageant queen (thank goodness) but I was sharp and was a pretty good kid, and despite the angsty middle school years when I lost weight and the awkward high school years when I desperately craved a love life, I never felt ugly. Yes, I have days where I'm blue and I cry and look in the mirror and despise myself, but those days pass and for the most part, I like the way I look, and I like to dress myself in a way that makes my individuality even more pronounced.

I've always felt that in order to survive in this world, I need to feel that I am the absolute best at being myself. That no one can be Margaux as well as I can (granted I'm aware there are others with my name, even my spelling...you know what I'm saying). I may be goofy or awkward or shy sometimes. I may get runs in my stockings, my make-up may run, my nails may be short, I may be a lowly restaurant girl, saving my pennies, but at the end of the day I have to believe that there's something perfect about all my imperfections, even when my nose looks like a 747 from certain angles, and even when I notice the size of my thighs.

After all, Audrey Hepburn and loads of other women became famous because why? Because they were a little bit Different. If you embrace what makes you unusual or out of style, you become a trendsetter. This is why I wish more women could just love what makes them weird, think of it as a gift, not a curse! We think of beauty as something universal and unchanging, but it is just another form of fashion, and I don't care who you are, you're beautiful BECAUSE you're different, not despite that.

PS Sorry I got all Oprah.

I am WOMAN

We're so inundated with images of tiny, lanky women, and we accept this ONE ideal....which is BORING. God bless Christina Hendricks and the people who cast her, if I put on weight, I don't just think about being "fat" or "thin" any more...I have her image in mind, too. It is silly, I know, but I admit, it really helps. She's perfect just the way she is....dear women everywhere and every size, love yourselves. Be who you are, stand up for yourselves, and you'll inspire others, too.


My grandpa passed down to me his Helen Reddy record. I don't think I would call my Finnish-American grandfather a feminist. At all. But the fact that he appreciates Helen Reddy (among many other musicians) and Mel Brooks and anything with dancing involved (Riverdance, Ballroom competitions, my middle school tap and jazz escapades, you name it) is what makes him such a fascinating and delightful character.

I am my own label: a true story

Once upon a time there was a girl who had but one top designer item, this being a vintage Ungaro skirt purchased for about ten dollars at a thrift store. Then one week this girl went to the Bon Marché in Paris and was dizzied by the things she couldn't afford, but too thirsty for shopping to not spend over twenty times what she normally would on a pair of Chanel sunglasses, thinking that her terrible luck with sunglasses would end with the blessing of Coco. A month or so later that same girl lost that same pair of Chanel shades in the vast city of New York. Surprise ending!! The girl was yours truly.

At first I was frightened, ridden with guilt over the ludicrous amount of money I'd spent, and then lost. I beat myself up, called myself stupid. Miraculously, the next day, a weight had been lifted and has never since returned. I've come to a wise conclusion that probably anybody can relate to: we are not defined by the material things in our lives. Value is not determined by cost or label. No, no, no, no, no. To let something like this haunt you is to admit to being weak and (pardon me if anyone takes offense) utterly, inexcusably ridiculous. Now, okay, I'll admit that if it had been a vintage Chanel suit or dress I lost, my heart might still be hurting. But at the end of the day, it is my earnest hope and desire that the tears I shed in life be over the love I've lost and gained, not over the things, no matter their label, no matter the money spent. And besides, the glasses always slipped off my nose when I put my head down, and they were very cute but I believe in my heart that the glasses and I were just not meant to have a long term relationship. I hope that some nice girl who couldn't afford them found them where I left them and was thrilled. It's a lovely thought, anyway.

The truth is that one of my favorite sweaters is vintage and cost me a mere 25 cents. Things don't have to be famous and mass-produced to be valuable or to make you look good, feel good or like yourself. I must admit that in Paris, I felt like an odd duck, too quirky and colorful to blend in somehow, but I feel it's time to embrace my weirdness yet again, to parade myself in my eccentric glory and not care what the magazines tell me a woman should be and wear. And after all, Coco Chanel was once a girl without money, who made her own rules, stuck out, and later became a fashion icon. Here's to karma, to the unpredictability of life, and to realizing that being yourself is far more special than owning expensive things.