Lilac ribbons

Streaming silk. Lavender buds pressed to smooth satin. Lilac streamers fluttering in a breeze or wound round a Maypole. Lilac ribbons braided into a bride’s plaited hair.

Every instance light and fae. Yesterday I wrote about autumn, and lilac ribbons bring us all the way to spring.

I always love the look of ribbon on a spool. Still, at age 40, my girlhood draw to smooth shiny things has not abated. I never know what to do with ribbon, though. It’s like seashells — lovely in its original habitat, but cheap and crafty-looking when I bring it home.

In fiction, the ribbons in girls’ bonnets always delighted me. The ribbons in Scarlett O’Hara’s hair, or that trimmed her dresses, were lovely in my mind. Like so many things that are perfect when imagined, I’ve found few instances of ribbon in real life that lived up to my dreams.

Actually, I take that back. I do like a well-placed ribbon trim. Especially if it’s hidden. I have a pair of black trousers that have a thin strip of pink ribbon in the inside waistband. Likewise, I love a coat with a strip of ribbon on the lip of an inside pocket. Just a touch. On the inside. A pop of smooth slick color that is not visible to anyone, but that I see every time I step into the pants or slide my arm into a sleeve.

Those ribbons, those barely there pops of color, delight me as much as the fictitious ribbons in Scarlett O’Hara’s hair.

Thanks to Mat_Jib Hunters for the prompt “lilac ribbons.”