Dixie Carter's death.

So I woke up the other morning and saw on my Facebook that Dixie Carter had died. Many feelings went through me. As there are many design folk on my Facebook, there were several homages to her and many were sad. I have seen Dixie in several interviews and her presence was just as powerful as Julia's. This role was made for her and only she could bring it to life.

Funnily enough, she was not an icon for me in interior design. The show really didn't do that much design...I think I remember 3 rooms that they spoke about. One was about the cat(inspired by Morris) that was selecting wallpaper. One was this lady who had no taste and completely destroyed the style of the house and then there was a house where the couple were having affairs on each other and they got dragged into it. It is amazing what you find out about people when you work on their homes and there is always the inner struggle of do I try to help it or not. My policy is to keep the door open, if they need to talk about it, they will. I do my best to consider all aspects of the design to help them. Although I have never run into something so blatant as that episode either so I don't really know what I would do. I don't think it fully sunk in to me what their job was and I didn't see it as my calling then. Back then, if you asked me, I was going to own my own restaurant and do something pretty unique with the decorations. (Decorating has always been part of my dreams, just didn't realize how it worked in them) I still have dreams of my own restaurant and how I would decorate it but I have no desire to work IN a restaurant, in time, in time.

Anyway, for me, Designing Women was about 4 amazing women and how they dealt with life. At the time, I remember everyone saying how groundbreaking it was and I didn't see it at that time in my life but now I do. It was pretty groundbreaking to have a show full of such amazing women who were in charge of their own lives. But to me, what made it groundbreaking was showing the strengths of all these women. Each in their own way, could make you really take notice of who they were. Of course, we all wanted to embrace the Julia Sugarbaker in us. Always having the perfect thing to say. She could go on a tirade and be so poetic that you almost had to thank her for doing it, even it was directed at you. That's class and so much more. Suzanne had a power in beauty. The "power of the boob" as it's called affectionately by my friends. I never really had that power, but after meeting this new group of friends who did, and seeing how it really worked, I was amazed. There is great power in our femininity. I think that we forget that. That was another earmark of the show, all of those women pulled their power out of their experience of being a woman. Mary Jo could draw - that was enough for me to be in awe of her...lol. But she had had her life turned upside down and she was turning it right side up. She questioned herself like we all do, she got scared like we all do and she did it anyway. These four ladies stuck together no matter what and encouraged each to be all they could be. With friends like that, you could take on the world. Charlene, the eternal optimist. Every group needs one. I think when I watched this I saw that the person I wanted to be was a bit of all these women, Julia's confidence and strength, Mary Jo's courage, Suzanne's pride and Charlene's optimism. This show didn't shape me as a designer, it shaped me as what I thought a woman should be. I think that impact is more important than anything. I was an incredible example of the woman I wanted to be, and could be, and would be, when I did finally have my own company, whatever it would be.