She went to the edge of the porch and shook a handful of pea hulls out of her apron onto the flowerbed. It was marigolds and Hot Tamale cosmos. Both Mama and I went in for bright colors. It was a family trait. At school it was a piece of cake to pick me out of a lineup of town girls in their beige or pink Bobbie Brooks matching sweater-and-skirt outfits. Medgar Biddle, who was once my boyfriend for three weeks including the homecoming dance, usd to say that I dressed like an eye test. I suppose he meant the type they give you when you go into the army, to see if you’re color blind, not the type that starts with the big E. He said it when we were breaking up, but I was actually kind of flattered. I had decided early on that if I couldn’t dress elegant, I’d dress memorable.
As soon as the protagonist of The Bean Trees said this, she became my instant hero.
When I was eight years old, I talked my mom into buying me this particular satin scarf. Maybe you remember the kind that had all these narrow fan folds? You could stretch them out wide in the middle or at one end and when you let go, the scarf would accordion back into a long, slender shape. The one I talked my mom into getting me had jewel tones in a paisley print. I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful, and it felt so good under my fingers. I stroked it like a pet.
On Monday I wanted to wear it to school. My mom, who to my memory had never before commented on my clothing choices, told me I could not leave the house dressed like that.
“But Mooooooooom, I like it. It’s beautiful.”
She said that yes, it was beautiful but it clashed something awful with my outfit and there was no way.
I didn’t see her point and really didn’t believe she knew what she was talking about. I wheedled and whined a bit more, but she would not budge on the matter. I was quite put out by how unfair she was being. What did she care what colors I wore to school, so long as I was happy?
I sneaked the scarf into my satchel.
As soon as I was on the playground, I thrust my arm down into my bag and withdrew the scarf; I tied it around my neck. It didn’t take five minutes for a pudgy little girl who had never spoken to me before to come right over and say to me, “That clashes.”
She didn’t say it in a mean way, but rather in a helpful way.
“Oh,” I said, and slowly unknotted the scarf to hide it away in my bag again.
When I read Patti Digh’s essay Wear Pink Glasses, I smiled. Give yourself permission, Patti urges. Well, I am happy to say that I do, I do give myself permission. I have been known to wear red striped tights with the grey Amish dress I made, a purple flower pinned to my riotous plaid winter coat, or orange socks with plum corduroy pants.
The first hint I had that I wanted to learn to be bold like this was the day Marca Gay came to class with this hairdo straight out of Star Trek. Her hair was wound around something that acted like a huge pipe cleaner, or so I imagined, because it stood straight up on her head like a little twisted Christmas Tree. Now anyone else would have been laughed right down the hall and back out the door, but not Marca. She was cooler than cool. I am not even talking about being in the popular clique kind of cool. No, she was three leagues above that. She was not in any clique; she was kind to everyone. She just oozed confidence. Without that confidence, people would have snickered behind her back that day, “What planet is she from?” But instead we all were secretly wondering if we could get our hair to do that and would she mind if we all came to school the next day with hair trees growing out of our heads.
That’s when I started to mull it over. You can do anything you want in this life if you learn to carry it off with confidence. Whether it was meant as a compliment or not, I do recall being approached one day on my university campus by a sort of quiet young woman who told me she couldn’t wait to see every day what I was going to wear next.
My inner peacock has had a long sleep. I thought perhaps my loss of interest in dressing like an eye test just meant that from the ashes of a two-year situational funk, my inner Buddhist nun was arising. Although–come to think of it–even Pema Chodron looks pretty snazzy in those maroon and saffron Thai silk robes.
It feels like my inner peacock is awakening from that sleep now, stretching his neck, ruffling his feathers, shaking out that gorgeous long tail. Today I pulled out my bead box. This is where I keep my needle-nose pliers, wire cutters, earring findings, and collection of beads that is sorted by colour into pill bottles and spice tins. What you find when you open any one of those tins is the result of living for eight years in the same neighbourhood as a bead store. Ahem. It can be a bit addictive, okay? For each colour, you will find something ceramic, something wood, something crystal, something glass. Having listened well when my mom taught me about good composition, I have round beads, oblong beads, opaque and translucent beads, cubic beads and flying saucer-shaped beads. The sizes vary, too, from seed beads almost too tiny to pass a wire through up to as big as I’ll be seen wearing in public.
Fall has always been the season that gets me excited about colour and texture, and today I felt that old excitement rousing once more. To get myself revved up and inspired, I look around me for interesting colour combinations. One place that never lets me down is Gudrun Sjoden‘s website. Talk about confidence!
Gudrun Sjoden Fall 09 Essentials
Then I sit down and create. Today I made the most fabulous earrings EVER, and I can’t wait to wear them when Sylvain and I see Moon this Friday night at the Windsor International Film Festival.
PS I am leaving soon to visit my mom and brother in Arkansas for nine days. My mom not only beads, but she makes her own beads out of glass. She took the lampworking class when she was 73 and did not let her shaky hands discourage her from persevering alongside the younguns! She tried to teach me, but I find the torch to be a bit intimidating. Maybe I’ll try again this visit. Here are some of her beads.
Mom's beads
I started to make a pair for this shirt, then realized that the ones my mom made for me during her visit in ’06 look great with it.
Yummy warm cardigan.
Don’t you think we would have fun sipping tea and making earrings all night?
click to enlarge
