Blending Styles

Nanette is a perfect example of “blending styles”. I would have called her more “earthy-crunchy”, in former days: long, curly tresses without fancy dresses; earth tones composing most of her wardrobe, and cottons if you please. Wool was too scratchy unless it was your favorite LL Bean socks worn over a pair of cotton to keep the toes toasty during cold New England winters. [Even the cast-iron radiators, some the size of a small horse, did not dispel enough winter to keep her slender frame from shivering under the slate roof of our old New Bedford home.]

As we moved to Florida and a much warmer clime, there emerged a style I would call the “funky-artsy” [or alternatively that other naughty word that rhymes with “artsy”]. Nanette shed her long hair for a length more suited to “hot and humid”. Forget the hair dryer and styling techniques she’d long practiced: wash and wear only for the desired curly girl look. An assortment of pastels joined her fashion palette. Who could forget the bright melon color that woke up her sleepy living room like a caffeine overload? The Granola Kid is transfused with the lifeblood of the NBC peacock, in living color.

Nanette’s new Birkenstock sandals are a dramatic example of the blending of these two styles. Nothing, in my opinion, is more stereotypically earthy-crunchy than Birks- a real favorite of the flower children of our youth and other back-to-the-earth types of later years. Good foot support, very practical, low maintenance, and durable. But while we were home last summer in America, Nanette found a pair of Birks at the Bargain Barn which shattered the earthy-crunchy stereotype. They personify funky-artsty bonding with earthy-crunchy like nothing I’ve ever seen. They don’t match anything else so you wear them with whatever.

If the truth be known, I find it kind of fun- me, Mr. Oatmeal-for-Breakfast-Every-Day daring to add honey and raisins for a little pizzazz. Her earthy-crunchy phase certainly prepared me better for life in China: tofu prepared in every imaginable way [yes, tofu pudding], almost un-American in the quantity of red meat that graced our dinner table for years. The more recent funky-artsy phase has forced me beyond my comfort zone, pulling me out of my stick-in-the-mud mentality. Adaptability and flexibility have been two key requirements of our Fuzhou lifestyle.

Hidden Treasures Home is a small community of blended styles: cooking styles, clothing styles, decorating and furniture, child-rearing, and education. Things evolve very quickly to adapt to new needs. It can never be about East or West, Chinese or American, a right way or wrong way to do something. It is about raising special needs children in a nurturing but stimulating environment, preparing some for adoption and all for a future and a hope. I hope it will always resemble Nanette’s Birkenstock sandals: an excellent example of blending styles.