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Diary of Pink
Nancy Scott

1940s. I am a girl child, but my play clothes are never pink—white blouses my mother can bleach, navy blue pants that don’t show dirt. Not blue jeans; only cowboys and farmers wear them.

No pink ballerina at my Halloween birthday, I’m in the striped clown suit with red, white, and blue stars. We are at war.

Christine shows me how to use a pinking shears made for right-handed people. I’m left-handed, so my hand always hurts. My penmanship teacher has given up insisting I write like a right-hander.
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1950s. Wristlet of pink roses, though I prefer gardenias, their intoxicating scent short-lived, but long enough for me to survive another awful date.

My father’s cousins, who escaped from Nazi Germany, own a woolen mill in England. My father covets the wool; my mother calls them pinkoes, an excuse to hate everyone in my father’s family.

My grandfather follows the stock market. Every day he reads the ticker tape and the pink sheets looking for a bargain. He’s made us all rich.

My mother grows magnificent pink peonies, shows me how to snap off extra buds to strengthen the blooms—a task I neglect because she’s already hired a gardener.
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1960s. I’ve never had a pink lady (like my egg whites cooked), prefer vodka or beer. My brother brags about visitations from numerous pink elephants.
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2009. My son, along with 50 million other Americans—the government lies about the numbers—gets his pink slip. I admire his ability to go from a high paying job to filling stock at Macy’s.
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2011. The editor of my new chapbook insists that the end pages are aubergine; it’s his brand, but I insist what I’m looking at is hot pink, the color of my granddaughter’s tutu or porn lingerie.

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words: Nancy Scott , New Jersey, www.nancyscott.net
images: 'leaves&daffodils', 'black white black' - Karyn Eisler, Canada (Living?s)

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note:
the image on top actually consists of 2 images - the second image appears when scrolling over the flowers.

& some notes on the process: 2 layers

 
   

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. .BluePrintReview - issue 29 - Diary of
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