"Doesn't she look like the girl who had everything?"
Happy Mother’s Day! | c. 1930
In the audio commentary for HBO’s Grey Gardens (2009), writer and director Michael Sucsy said that he combined two segments of Edie Beale’s original poems for this scene of the film.
“California puts your whole life away,
And you’re left with yourself and the bay!”
-Edie Beale, 1997.
When I was young
I had a dream
So real it seemed
‘Twas part of me
A walking, living fantasy
Of my life and all I hoped t’would be
Of what I loved and wanted near
The sea, the sand, the sun and sky
Could anyone love them as much as I?
The wind through dune grass
As dusk came on
A whippoorwill’s lonely song
The waning moon over the pond
A placid ocean beneath a summer’s sun
A path through a woodland once begun
But never finished
I would live with these and never leave them
Till my life was done!
They say such dreams are finally cast away
But mine died a little
From day to day
Through loneliness
Yet I know now
What I never knew…
That it would live again in you.
Happy 117th birthday to Big Edie Beale!
May | 1964
I am weary of the old loves -
I am weary of the new
I am weary of this earth - with all its hopes untrue.
The world is full of hoping
And dreams I’ve dreampt before
I want a dream come true - I ask for nothing more.
I dreampt a silver dream once.
It faded into mist.
A dew drop did the same once
That by the sun was kissed.
I want a dream that will never fade
Silver though it be.
I want a dream hung from a star
And plucked by only me.
I want a made-to-order dream
As in the old time lore
I want a dream come true -
I ask for nothing more.
“Bury me not in the sandy loam / Let the winds and the tide hold my bones.”
-Little Edie’s diary | July 4, 1983.
