#BlogHerWritingLab ~A lovely childhood dream of becoming Miss America…
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CRADLE SONG by Sarojini Naidu
From groves of spice,
O’er fields of rice,
Athwart the lotus-stream,
I bring for you,
Aglint with dew
A little lovely dream.
Sweet, shut your eyes,
The wild fire-flies
Dance through the fairy neem;
From the poppy-bole
For you I stole
A little lovely dream.
Dear eyes, good-night,
In golden light
The stars around you gleam;
On you I press
With soft caress
A little lovely dream.
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In this poem, children know the beauty and safety of the night as a DREAM is brought to them by someone who loves them.
Reading this poem brought me very far back to when I was a child of 5, 6, 7 years old.
I often remember my dreams very vividly. But sometimes we have experiences that are so very special that we think of them as dreams. One of my dreams like this as a child was to be Miss America some day.
Oh, yes. I said Miss America! This was the Princess-y dream, I believe, of my childhood, right up there with Cinderella.
The Miss America Pageant began long before I was born… originating in the 1920’s. My dream as a little girl growing up in the 1950’s was to become Miss America. My Mom and Dad were very certain to let my dream live, too, a dream that I could be Miss America. The night of the Miss America Pageant, which happened once a year and was televised in B&W no less, would become my most special night of all nights.
My Mom and Dad would put my brothers and me to bed, but the secret was that they would wake me up when the pageant was televised. I’m not sure now if the pageant began at 9:00 pm or maybe even later… but I would sit in-between my Mom and Dad on our living room couch and watch the entire show. I remember our black & white television in our small living room in California. I remember the contestants strutting in their bathing suits. I remember the beautiful gowns. I remember the song There She Is, Miss America, and I can still hear Bert Parks singing it to the new Miss America winner each year. My Dad would sing this song to me! I even remember some of the words from the song:
There she is, Miss America,
There she is, your ideal…
There she is
Walking on air…
There she is
Miss America.
I remember the grand bouquet of flowers and the sparkly crown. I remember my Dad saying, “I wonder if you’ll be Miss California or Miss Michigan or Miss Massachusetts or Miss Maine or Miss Illinois…” because we had already lived in all of those places.
But mostly, I remember the night of the pageant each year with my Mom and Dad. The secret of being alone with my parents. The wonder of being a girl, maybe! It was like a wonderful dream to me. It was like walking on air, or at least high heels! There is something so simple and so beautiful about parents bringing little lovely dreams to their children, isn’t there?!
What is one of your LOVELY DREAMS?
And do you, with soft caress, carry little lovely dreams to the children in your life?
I never did become the real Miss America. Hey, I never entered a pageant or even cared to once I became a teenager of the turbulent 60’s. But that’s OK. It was a little lovely dream and an even more lovely secret & special experience with my parents while it lasted, and I would always remain Miss America to my Mom & Dad…
