The Butterfly Hours Memoir Project: NIGHTGOWN

For 2019 I'm running a year-long series on my blog in which I share my responses to the writing assignment prompts found in THE BUTTERLY HOURS by Patty Dann.

I welcome you to join me, if you like! I've divided the prompts by month, and the plan is to respond to 3 (or so) a week. For some of these I may write poems, for others prose. The important thing is to mine my memory. Who knows where this exploration will lead?

For links to the prompts I've written on so far this year, please click on The Butterfly Hours tab above. 

This month's prompts include: mail, moon, mouse, moving, museum, music, music lesson, name, necklace, neighbor, nightgown.


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NIGHTGOWN

My mother has made many memorable gifts for me over the years, but one of the most beloved was the Christmas she made matching nightgowns for me and my sister and our two new dolls. The gowns were blue-speckled for me and my doll, red-speckled for Lynn and her doll. (This was before big-name companies offered this same service or could even create a doll that looks like the person.) All featured a Raggedy Ann & Andy, red rick-rack and lace trim. I can't remember the name of my sister's doll, but mine was called “Pamela Jane.” Fortunately a photograph of all four of us survives (and perhaps is the reason the memory survives):

Irene & Lynn