Cecilia- Background Story
Summer, 1973
Massachusetts
The sun was bright in the meadow behind the back garden, adding to the fuzzy contented feeling Joanne had playing with her daughter. She’d spread out a large checkered blanket, the tall un-mown grasses with their multicolored flowers rising all around giving it’s soft woven surface the feeling of a secret fairy glade. She hummed to herself, finishing the crown of flowers she was weaving and plopping it unceremoniously upon Cecilia’s tiny head. Her daughter giggled and promptly pulled off the crown, pulling it apart in an attempt to see how her mommy had made it. Joanne smiled indulgently and continued to hum, eventually segueing into one of her favorite songs, the one she had named her daughter for.
“Cecilia, You're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home”
Her daughter beamed up at her, recognizing both her name and the song. She placed her crown of flowers haphazardly back upon her curly black hair and clamored to her feet, spinning and dancing about the blanket. In her childish way she even tried to sing along, doing quite well for a child not even three years of age.
”Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home
Come on home”
Joanne nabbed her daughter’s tiny hands and ‘danced’ with her, remaining sitting cross-legged on the blanket and swinging her and Cecilia’s joined hands in time to the song. The next verse Cecilia didn’t know very well, and couldn’t understand if even if she did; So Joanne sang it by herself, putting on a funny caricature of a face and singing it in a high-pitched voice.
”Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia
Up in my bedroom
Making love!
I got up to wash my face,
When I come back to bed
Someone's taken my place”
Cecilia giggled at her mother’s antics and Joanne took the joke further by mock-scolding her daughter, making a ridiculous parody of one of her mother-in-law’s lectures.
“Now don’t you go and be like the Cecilia you’re named after…no breaking men’s hearts for you. No your going to be a good girl and never be a free-loving hippie flower child like your mother. We wouldn’t want to waste all that good breeding of yours by having crazy ideas like your mother now would we? No, nothing but the best for Cecilia Weston, she’s going to marry a Senator…”
“Crazy Old Bat” Joanne thought derisively. Good thing Diane distained to come play out of doors with them, though Joanne would probably get an earful about letting Cecilia stay out in the sun too long. She’d been fighting with her Mother-in-law practically since the day she married Philip. Diane had liked her well enough when she’d thought Joanne was just another society girl, attending Radcliff just to find a husband like half the girls there. But once they had gotten to know each other and Diane had discovered that her daughter-in-law had some distressingly liberal ideas and had even, GASP, attended Woodstock, things had just gone downhill. Her mother-in -law was convinced that Joanne’s past was the reason that Philip would never have a successful political career like she had wanted for him…the fact that he wasn’t interested in politics not withstanding.
Currently they tended to lock wills over how Cecilia should be raised…But Joanne would be dammed before she’d let Diane turn her daughter into another vapid high-class society girl, only interested in appearances.
Her daughter had plopped her tiny fists upon her hips, scowling back at Joanne as she mock-scolded her. Joanne wondered if her little girl knew that she was making fun of Grandma. She didn’t think so but still she approved of the show of will. She stuck her tongue out at her daughter, her heart soaring to see the sunshine smile spread across Cecilia’s face and into those bright green eyes.
“That’s right little one, break as many hearts as you like. Live your life the way you want to and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, not Grandma…not even Mommy. Though for Mommy’s sake please be kind….
Oohh…Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home
Come on home”
Cecilia grabbed her mother’s hands and started dancing in her toddler way again. Joanne kept singing and pulled her daughter into her lap, tickling her sides to hear her golden laughter.
”Jubilation!
She loves me again
I fall on the floor and I'm laughing”
Joanne rolled back onto the blanket, hoisting Cecilia up into the air above her. The half-dismantled crown gave way, sending a rain of flowers down upon Joanne’s face and scattering petals all over the blanket. Cecilia shrieked in joy as she pretended to be an airplane.
”Jubilation!
She loves me again
I fall on the floor and I'm laughing…”
Joanne lowered Cecilia so that she was cuddled against her mother’s shoulder. They rested there for a while, Cecilia falling asleep curled in her mother’s arms and Joanne lulled to peace by the warm sunshine and the humming of the meadow insects. She rubbed her cheek against Cecilia’s soft sweet smelling hair, her mind still, perfectly happy and content.
Having Cecilia in her life was worth a million mother-in-laws.
Massachusetts
The sun was bright in the meadow behind the back garden, adding to the fuzzy contented feeling Joanne had playing with her daughter. She’d spread out a large checkered blanket, the tall un-mown grasses with their multicolored flowers rising all around giving it’s soft woven surface the feeling of a secret fairy glade. She hummed to herself, finishing the crown of flowers she was weaving and plopping it unceremoniously upon Cecilia’s tiny head. Her daughter giggled and promptly pulled off the crown, pulling it apart in an attempt to see how her mommy had made it. Joanne smiled indulgently and continued to hum, eventually segueing into one of her favorite songs, the one she had named her daughter for.
“Cecilia, You're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home”
Her daughter beamed up at her, recognizing both her name and the song. She placed her crown of flowers haphazardly back upon her curly black hair and clamored to her feet, spinning and dancing about the blanket. In her childish way she even tried to sing along, doing quite well for a child not even three years of age.
”Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home
Come on home”
Joanne nabbed her daughter’s tiny hands and ‘danced’ with her, remaining sitting cross-legged on the blanket and swinging her and Cecilia’s joined hands in time to the song. The next verse Cecilia didn’t know very well, and couldn’t understand if even if she did; So Joanne sang it by herself, putting on a funny caricature of a face and singing it in a high-pitched voice.
”Making love in the afternoon with Cecilia
Up in my bedroom
Making love!
I got up to wash my face,
When I come back to bed
Someone's taken my place”
Cecilia giggled at her mother’s antics and Joanne took the joke further by mock-scolding her daughter, making a ridiculous parody of one of her mother-in-law’s lectures.
“Now don’t you go and be like the Cecilia you’re named after…no breaking men’s hearts for you. No your going to be a good girl and never be a free-loving hippie flower child like your mother. We wouldn’t want to waste all that good breeding of yours by having crazy ideas like your mother now would we? No, nothing but the best for Cecilia Weston, she’s going to marry a Senator…”
“Crazy Old Bat” Joanne thought derisively. Good thing Diane distained to come play out of doors with them, though Joanne would probably get an earful about letting Cecilia stay out in the sun too long. She’d been fighting with her Mother-in-law practically since the day she married Philip. Diane had liked her well enough when she’d thought Joanne was just another society girl, attending Radcliff just to find a husband like half the girls there. But once they had gotten to know each other and Diane had discovered that her daughter-in-law had some distressingly liberal ideas and had even, GASP, attended Woodstock, things had just gone downhill. Her mother-in -law was convinced that Joanne’s past was the reason that Philip would never have a successful political career like she had wanted for him…the fact that he wasn’t interested in politics not withstanding.
Currently they tended to lock wills over how Cecilia should be raised…But Joanne would be dammed before she’d let Diane turn her daughter into another vapid high-class society girl, only interested in appearances.
Her daughter had plopped her tiny fists upon her hips, scowling back at Joanne as she mock-scolded her. Joanne wondered if her little girl knew that she was making fun of Grandma. She didn’t think so but still she approved of the show of will. She stuck her tongue out at her daughter, her heart soaring to see the sunshine smile spread across Cecilia’s face and into those bright green eyes.
“That’s right little one, break as many hearts as you like. Live your life the way you want to and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, not Grandma…not even Mommy. Though for Mommy’s sake please be kind….
Oohh…Cecilia, you're breaking my heart
You're shaking my confidence daily
Oh Cecilia, I'm down on my knees
I'm begging you please to come home
Come on home”
Cecilia grabbed her mother’s hands and started dancing in her toddler way again. Joanne kept singing and pulled her daughter into her lap, tickling her sides to hear her golden laughter.
”Jubilation!
She loves me again
I fall on the floor and I'm laughing”
Joanne rolled back onto the blanket, hoisting Cecilia up into the air above her. The half-dismantled crown gave way, sending a rain of flowers down upon Joanne’s face and scattering petals all over the blanket. Cecilia shrieked in joy as she pretended to be an airplane.
”Jubilation!
She loves me again
I fall on the floor and I'm laughing…”
Joanne lowered Cecilia so that she was cuddled against her mother’s shoulder. They rested there for a while, Cecilia falling asleep curled in her mother’s arms and Joanne lulled to peace by the warm sunshine and the humming of the meadow insects. She rubbed her cheek against Cecilia’s soft sweet smelling hair, her mind still, perfectly happy and content.
Having Cecilia in her life was worth a million mother-in-laws.