Isn't it amazing how you can write an entire blog about something you find hilarious about someone else and completely forget that you were once guilty of the same horrific crimes you just spent a whole blog elaborating on? My family was quick to point out that Matthew's rainboots were nothing compared to my childhood wardrobe...
At the age of 7, I saw "Sound of Music" for the first time. Of all the characters in that movie for a child to relate to, my strongest connection was with Mother Superior. I spent the next week dressed in some kind of nun-like costume topped off with my mother's denim wrap skirt on my head as my "head covering". I took up residence in my father's home office and wrote very important messages on a pad of notebook paper. I'm sure I counseled weary souls and confused nuns during that week but I only have recollections of feeling very important and powerful. Forget Maria...I wanted a bunch of people to order around.
In sixth grade I remember going to see the movie Ghandi...two times. The second time was particularly memorable because my brother and I accidentally dropped a packet of M&M's from the very back row and they rattled the whole way down the slanted floor of theatre with people yelling, "Shh" and lifting their feet off the floor with a "What the...". Anyway, shortly after seeing the movie for the second time I took to wearing my mother's yellow silk pajamas around with a bright dot of red lipstick in the middle of my forehead. This wouldn't disturb me so much if I hadn't been 12 years old and didn't have distinct memories of wandering around the woods in the back of our house in this get-up. Who knows game I was playing out for myself...
The years 1980-1984 were spent in the garage dressed in my "roller-derby" outfit where I was training to be the next rollerskating champion of the world. I remember a pair of white leg warmers with pink unicorns and a torn at the neck, hanging off one shoulder gray sweatshirt with a big orange tiger and "Eye of the Tiger" in velour black lettering on the front. Choice outfit.
There were many, many years I spent in a flowy floral hippy skirt and very high stiletto heels playing school in the basement. Oddly enough, I did go on to be a teacher but never once wore stiletto heels to school. Education today just isn't what it used to be.
So here I was throwing literary stones at my 2 year old with the biggest, sharpest old beam just hanging right out of my own eye...sorry Matthew. And Mo...burn the evidence.
4 comments:
Individual expression through "dress ups" has been a part of our family culture for as long as I can remember. The "dress up barrel" (a huge food storage type container) held the clothes of days gone by. I would KILL to now have some of the things Mom used to wear that made it into that barrel! I have already begun my "dress up collection"... Oh the power of clothes! How else could a denim skirt make you act and feel like a pre-world war II Austrian nun?
Good for you, Amy. It's soul cleansing to own up to your own foibles and eccentricities. I really don't remember the Ghandi phase but do you think that's why the neighbors cheered and threw marigold petals when we moved? I still have a costume box in the garage....I think I'll go check it out today and see what treasures are still lurking in it...maybe send them to Carrie. You at least outgrew the dress up phase, Carrie on the other hand....
I would love to see the "Eye of the Tiger" sweatshirt.
Christian...I would kill for that sweatshirt right now. I would frame it and hang it somewhere. I've even thought of checkign eBay...
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