The Milliner, a Passage -- by Alex Ranieri

My earliest memory is a vivid one; my field of vision was entirely taken up with a piece of maroon satin which my mother, at my infant clamoring for the object, had hastily given me, to stop my noise. Stop my noise it did—and though I could not know it at the time, that ribbon’s color and texture would mark the beginning of my adult consciousness; and all the memories I had undoubtedly stored up til that point, were to fall away, as completely as my baby teeth, to give way to mental faculties of sturdier construction.

I could not say whether this, and the accompanying queer sensation, of that cloth had bestowed on me the power of memory, sealed that part of my fate which was to become my profession, or whether later impressions, in their frequency and regularity, did not mould from many possibilities the certain choice of millinery. For my mother was also a member of that profession, and did not hesitate to usher me onto its path, even before I could speak. At two or three years old, while I was babbling nonsense, she would take me on her lap, and gently guide my small fingers to clasp her needle, and to make stitches in the inconspicuous corner of her project; a practice she later assured me had the power of hypnosis to calm my upsets, and to absorb all my undesired attention.