All Girls are Princesses.»
A most dear family friend shot this photograph of me when I was about six years old.
My Halloweens were always made special by the most elaborate and elegant of costumes, each individually hand stitched with the tender love and care of my mother and Zia Tina. Their chosen fabrics were always the finest, and nobody’s fingers could work a needle and thread like their own.
Wilma’s Boutique on Main Street was where we would model our ensembles, my siblings, cousins, and I, receiving the treatment of utter royalty, as the little people in Debbie’s lens. The way the sun would shine on those October mornings, making the evening gowns aligned all sparkle… the presence of glamour marked by the grande armchair adorning the entrance; Wilma’s was every princesses’s dream home.
My childhood memories were the sweetest.
As most other girls my age, I desired nothing more than to be a princess—a real princess. I showed no interest in mimicking Cinderella, Bell, or Snow White; I wanted to be my own princess. Little did I know, that I already was one.
“I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny old attics, even if they dress in rags, even if they aren’t pretty, or smart, or young…they’re still princesses. All of us.
Didn’t your father ever tell you that?” -Sara Crewe, A Little Princess (1995)
“Melissa…You were a young princess when you came for a visit at Wilma’s…no wonder you’ve been groomed to be such a “divine” young woman!”
Photograph by ©Debbie Pinckney
T H A N K Y O U, D E B B I E.
