"Ordinary" was the worst word my mother could find for anything. I remember her taking me shopping and taking no notice of the shop assistants when they suggested that some dress or pair of shoes was very popular, "We’ve sold fifty already this week" That was all she needed to hear. "No", she would say, "We’re not interested in that. Haven’t you got something a little more unusual" And then the assistant would bring out all the strange colours no one else would buy. And later she and I would argue because I wanted to be ordinary but my mother wanted to be unusual.
"I can’t stand that hairdo. "she said, when I went to the hairdresser with my friend and came back with a boy haircut, "It is so terribly ordinary." Not ugly, not unsuitable. But ordinary...
"Couldn’t you please wear something else" I asked one day when she was dressing for Parents’ Dayin tight-fitting bullfighter’s pants and a bright pink sweater.
"What’s wrong with what I’m wearing"
What wasn’t wrong with it!
"It’s just that I wish you’d wear something ordinary," I said, "something that people won’t laugh at."
She looked at me angrily and then said, "Are you ashamed of your own mother If you are, Isadora, I feel sorry for you. I really do.\