As spring nears, I usually edit some clothes from my closet, deep-clean the house of several tons of cat hair and update my look with a hyper-bright lipstick shade or a haircut. Usually, that’s enough to put spring in my step. But lately, I’ve been thinking I need a bigger update… I keep getting ma’amed—at the grocery, the post office, in the classroom. And I keep hearing myself say—or sing—in silent response, “Quit ma’aming me,” set to the tune of Tom Petty’s “Jammin’ Me,” if you know it—“Quit ma’aming me!” I hum to myself, fairly
aggressively, imagining I’m atop an SUV, for some reason.
Is this what it means no longer to be a so-called spring chicken—that you don’t get to thrill over feeling sexy in a sexy season?
I refuse to accept such nonsense. Yes, I look older, but I prefer my face these days…
Anyway, thank goodness for this new issue of Baltimore STYLE, which opens the doors to beautiful interior design news as well as garden and backyard concepts, and lightens my cosmic, or maybe cosmetic, mood considerably.
This issue also tours an extraordinary townhouse in Bolton Hill, owned and rebuilt by artist Lat Naylor. As an acquaintance, I’ve watched the lives of Lat and his wife
Barbara—and their home redo—evolve after the birth of their two sons, and it’s so exciting to view the luxurious yet totally realistic home layout they’ve achieved.
Speaking of growing up and having sons, my husband, the dad to our twin baby boys, Tex and Miner, Michael Yockel, contributes a thoughtful—and just plain funny—report here on the plethora of mayoral candidates in Baltimore, a city whose troubles sometimes seem nearly to equal its intense and quirky charm.
On the subject of trouble, please don’t miss our local writers’ amazingly moving memoir essays on divorce, their own or someone else’s. These scribes’ post-separation maturity is the stuff of Zen transcendence. It reminds me, with the exception of all the ma’aming, how great it is to be 42.
I love my kids, my husband, my cats—I appreciate our comfy little rowhouse and the fact that my RAV4 is almost paid for. I also appreciate the facial aesthetician Arika Casebolt gave me for our “Beauty Explorer” column in this issue. I appreciate that you’re reading my letter in our fine magazine. Thank you.
If all of this realization—and acceptance—makes me a ma’am, well, I’m not afraid—I’m no chicken.
Wait, won’t you tell me how you like our stories and what you most want to read? But don’t get clever and start your note, “Dear Ma’am—”
Yours truly,
Betsy
Betsy Boyd
Editor-In-Chief
[email protected]
