Mercury in Retrograde

Do the planets of our solar system have an influence on our lives? For those of you who are unaware, uninterested, or think it’s a crackpot notion, I would like to raise an inquiry as to whether or not this may be true.

It is a fact that three times a year, each time for a three-week period, our closest neighbor, Mercury, backtracks. This is called “going retrograde.” Mercury, the god with wings on his feet to dispatch all things having to do with communication and travel, is shirking his chores. As a result, we have to navigate our world with annoying handicaps and hitches that leave us wondering what is going on.

When, in response to some unusual situation, I can’t help saying, “You know, Mercury is in retrograde,” I have found two responses among my friends and family.  The skeptics roll their eyes and groan, while others either want to know more about the phenomenon or corroborate  my remark and have their own anecdotes to share,  like a private club of commiserating, retrograde comrades who know the inside story.

The way to begin to look at this question of the possibility of planetary influences is not to imagine some guy flying around with little wings attached to his heels, but to imagine that we are living in a world of ever-changing energies which have an effect on us.  Science already tells us this, but we have the habit of dismissing any thoughts that interrupt our usual associations. Having to go out of our way to consider a different concept would require an intentional effort, disrupting our known thought patterns.

However, this story is not meant to be a lecture, but a small account of some of my adventures in connection with my study of Mercury’s energy, or lack thereof, in my life.

Having for years been in the business of making window treatments (drapes, shades, etc.) for people’s houses, I became aware of retrograde periods almost as a necessity in order to maintain some perspective during the times of chaos when mistakes, miscommunications and the need to redo work became predictable if extra care was not taken. 

As a single mother with two young children, I had begun a sewing business of dressmaking and alterations as a way to earn money. Working out of my home with flexible hours was ideal. I could sew after Sarah and Paul had gone to sleep, or make soup while I was hemming Mrs. FruFru’s dress.

I adopted the attitude of always saying “yes” when someone asked me if I could make something, and I found that being enthusiastic out of necessity gave me a lot of courage.  I had a sort of partnership with providence, as if someone were saying to me, “If you are willing to try, we will give you the opportunity.” So began a sort of odyssey, not of sea voyages and cyclops, but of learning to sew whatever came my way.

I had already endured a few years of trying to please spoiled rich women going through menopause—an impossible task, difficult to bear, but leaving me with the knowledge that a life spent in pursuit of self-gratification did not, as the years passed, bring fulfillment. I would look in the mirror at myself, on my knees at the hem of my disdainful, unhappy client, and find a clear sense of myself, as well as some measure of compassion for the poor rich lady who stood before me, not knowing how to make herself happy. 

When I was in these elegant homes, adorned with elaborate drapes and shades and pillows and cushions of every size, shape and description, made in the workrooms of high-end designers, I found myself drawn to the beauty of the magnificent rich fabrics with their fringes and tassels and cords, the amazingly draped shades with cascading sheers.  When no one was looking, I would peek behind the shades to see how they were constructed, or take a look at the hems and linings of the drapes.

These brief tutorials often coincided with a telephone call asking if I made roman shades, or “I need some pillows for my couch.” It didn’t take me long to see that home interior sewing was the road for me. I wouldn’t have to worry any more about how to make someone’s waist look small.

I was fortunate to have one of my early drapery attempts with a client of modest means. She and her husband lived in a little house in Bernal Heights. He was a biker cartoonist, complete with studded black leather jacket and rings in his ears, who worked at home. They had an annoying whiny daughter who liked to hang out with her dad while he worked.

I had gone to consult with the client and take measurements for some simple lined drapes with a French pleat header. Unfortunately, whether through my dyslexic mistake or the lack of help from Mercury, or both, as I held up the completed drape panel to hang on the rod, I discovered I had transposed the measurements, making the width the length and the length the width. There before me, hanging down a foot on the floor, were my drapes, with a wide uncovered margin on the side. “Well,” I said in a casual tone, “I see they need a little adjusting.” Thankfully, my client was not horrified to see my mistake, and I tried to act like this was the usual procedure in drapery making, while racking my brain for a way to salvage the project.

At this point in my white-knuckle, cold-sweat moment, the whiny little daughter entered the living room in a highly distressed manner and interrupted my floundering.  “Mommy!  Mommy!  Daddy’s choking me!”  Without further ado, I threw the botched drapes over my arm and made my graceful exit.  I got into my car and burst into laughter.  They were returned, shortened, with a decorative wide band on the sides and smaller pleats.

Another memorable retrograde experience occurred when I was finishing a wedding gown for one of my unusual brides. This woman was middle-aged, embarking on her first marriage with a postal clerk who had lived with his mother for forty years. I liked my bride and was happy for her. She had a small bust and a large belly, and there were some folds under her chin that needed hiding, so I set about adjusting the pattern of her dress accordingly. She always brought her extremely overweight sister with her to fittings, and I found it interesting to try to figure out what her sister had suffered in her life to make her such a bitter woman, bent on trying to humiliate the bride.

This was in the early 1990s, when styles were sometimes unorthodox. The gown she had chosen had an uneven hem with a satin under-slip and a tulle overlayer which was decorated with occasional embroidered flower motifs. I was sewing the finishing touches on the armhole seam with an overlock machine, which had a blade for trimming uneven edges, when I discovered that the lightness of the tulle had tricked me. The overlayer had folded under on itself, causing a bit of the tulle to be cut, leaving a hole in the sleeve of the finished wedding gown.

When I saw my mistake, I experienced something akin to going through a black hole, with the sensation of the world imploding on me.  I got up from the machine and walked out the back door to sit quietly in the sun--just sitting there without a thought. After some moments of quiet, the answer came—to sew an embroidered flower motif over the hole.  I did that, and no one ever suspected the secret hidden under the flower. The bride looked beautiful and lived happily ever after.

My third example of the retrograde influence happened after I had moved to Petaluma and my sister Karen had come for a visit. It was time for her to catch her return flight at San Francisco airport, and I had arranged to combine the ride to the airport with the delivery of a long, upholstered valance box and drapes to a client in the city. This had to be accomplished with the help of a rental truck.

The fiasco began when I went to pick up the truck, which was not there because the previous renters were late in returning it. When the truck finally arrived, I rushed back to my house and hurriedly put the valance in the bed of the truck, covering it with a sheet for protection.

Bags went in the back of the truck, and we were off, with Karen muttering, in a bit of a huff, how she and her husband always allowed plenty of time for getting to airports. I explained to her that the situation couldn’t have been helped and that Mercury was in retrograde.  Karen, a conservative Taurus, did not want to hear anything about planets. The idea was ridiculous!

Off we went on our speedy journey down the freeway, headed for Golden Gate Bridge. I must have been going almost 80 miles an hour when we heard a flapping noise. Looking in the rear-view mirror, I was horrified to see the wrapped sheet beginning to catch the wind and become a sail.

We opened the sliding rear window of the truck’s cab, and Karen, with her ample bosom, managed to squeeze her upper half through the opening to grab the flapping sheet. There we were, speeding down the freeway, with my sister half way out the back window of the cab, grabbing for a soon-to-be airborne sheet.

We made it over the bridge and down Park Presidio through Golden Gate Park. Then, sitting at a stop light, I watched as a giant sprinkler tick-tick-ticked its way at the side of the road, proceeding on course to drench my valance with its spray. Trapped in the traffic, I waited, looking from the red light, to the cars in front of me, to the gradual approach of the arch of water, while Karen muttered about her full bladder.

The light changed, cars began to move, and we passed to freedom just as the first sprinkles fell on the well-traveled sheet. We made it to the airport, where Karen had to run all the way to her gate. (This was in the good old days before elaborate security screening.)

The next day I called Karen to see if she had made it home all right.  She reported that on the last lap of her journey, after she had been picked up and they were leaving the parking lot, the electronic gate malfunctioned and refused to lift its arm to let them out. My sister, explaining to her driver, said, “Well, you know, Mercury is in retrograde.”