Sara Petitt

Lunch at Le Marine in Paris

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by Sara Petitt

I sit in a magnificent blue and white striped tented cafe in the newly renovated Le Marine.

The couple sitting next to me are bird like and delicate. I can’t imagine either one being married to anyone else. Such perfection in pairing is unusual to see.

I can’t discern if they are Swiss but they may be.

They talk in hushed whispers. The man is in his 70’s and wears a large expensive watch with a multitude of functions. He rubs his chest where his heart is and flexes the fingers of his left hand by stretching and recoiling them.

I fantasize that he has suffered a heart illness recently. He protects his heart the way a pregnant woman strokes her belly reflexively without even knowing it.

They are too refined for dessert. Just an expresso after a lunch of salad.

I observe less of the woman because she sits beside me. As I would expect she wears a thin gold wedding band. There is no need for flashy diamonds. Not only would they weigh her delicate fingers down but they would contradict her quiet and unobtrusive appearance.

I wonder how many bird-like children they have and what professions they are in. Is finance too vulgar for them? Trade would not work either. They would have to limit their communication with the outside world to slender-boned creatures like themselves.

I feel as if I belong to another species of Homo sapiens looking at them.

Voila, they alight and leave me at my table imagining.

Sara Petitt has a BFA from Bennington College where she majored in Fine Arts and minored in Literature. Although she has always worked professionally in art as a teacher and designer her second passion is writing. LP² gives her the opportunity to pursue her writing.

JFK Comes Home to the Garment District

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by Sara Petitt

 The industry that I was part of for so many years has disappeared along with the wooly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger. From the years after WW 2 until the 1990’s the garment district and textile manufacturers’ buildings lined the streets from 34th Street to 42nd Street on 7th Avenue.

During John Kennedy’s bid for the Presidency, he came to give a speech on a platform hastily built on 7th Avenue. It was October 27th, 1960 and the sun was shining when Kennedy mounted the platform. Workers from the nearby office buildings flooded the streets while hundreds looked down from open windows. I was packed in the crowd with other textile artists from my company. 

He started with an off the cuff joke given in his Boston accent, “I have returned to my people” which was followed by uproarious laughter from the crowd of mainly natives of Brooklyn and the Bronx. We all heartily cheered this handsome aristocratic looking man so alien to our neighborhood. 

When he finished his speech the cheering crowds threw swatches of fabric from the windows instead of the usual ticker tape. Then the frenzy really started. All eyes left Kennedy and flew upwards towards the cascading remnants of fabric. Voices around me shouted, “Look, look, Lowenstein is using Periwinkle Blue…do we have any in our line?” “Over there Cone Hall Marx is using olive green!!” Then the crowd dispersed and we all ran back to our offices not to discuss politics, but to repaint designs in the array of colors that floated from the sky that sunny day.

 

Although Sara Petitt taught design for 30 years at the college level, she always loved to write and often integrated writing into her artwork.