Man, I am behind in the visuals department. My deepest apologies. My only excuse is that finished is better than perfect, at least in the getting-blog-posts-up department.
So. Where to start. Maybe my childhood? I grew up in an area of the country which is not known for being fashion-forward, and pushing my own family even further back than this regional trend was the fact that we were-- well, I've learned that "poor" can be a loaded while simultaneously vague term, so I will say that we almost always wore hand-me-down clothes.
Occasionally Grandma Tommy would visit, and sew us a few things, and there was that one time when Mom came into some money and took me "school shopping," a concept with which I had been previously unfamiliar. In my clothing-acquisition experience up to that point, you just went through the bags of hand-me-downs as they came in, not paying attention to any particular seasonal schedule, but taking what would fit for yourself and then passing on what didn't. Also, that same year as "school shopping," there was a shop down the street that had Sunday dresses on sale, and Mom got us each one
OK. This is not a pity party. The truth is, it was rather freeing to have a sense that fashion didn't have to matter to us. Things that mattered in my family were books, and school, and music (as in, piano lessons and practice, and singing, and cello lessons and practice for me). If I had to pick, I would definitely go for the family values I grew up with rather than something more usual.
But over time, I realized that my life would be easier if I learned to fit in a little better visually, and so I began to figure out reasons why fashion might be worth paying attention to. The best one I ever came up with was that when you adopt a fashion, you are saying to the people who like that fashion that you are like them.
As time progressed, while I never became (and never aspire to be) a fashion plate, I slowly upped my fashion game to the point that I now blend in, mostly successfully, with my peers who were raised with a more usual sense of what fashion means. The vast majority of my clothes are still pre-loved, though I usually buy them myself at a thrift store (rather than waiting for like-sized friends to clean out their closets), and this fact still doesn't really bother me.
Shoes, on the other hand, are an entirely different matter. Mom read when we were young that you should never put children in used shoes, because they could damage their feet, so our shoes were always bought new, for us. As an adult, I buy not just new shoes but rather nice ones, because I have a back problem which requires a very thick sole between myself and the ground. Also, a year ago fall, I found out that I have bunions, and that the expensive-type shoes I was used to getting for the sake of my back were the sort the doctor recommended for my feet. I guess it's a good thing I like the look :).
There was only one problem with this, however. The favored shoes made a loud klonking noise on the floor, and we have a downstairs neighbor who is rather noise-sensitive. It got to the point that a few months ago, I realized that tight budget notwithstanding, I had to get some new shoes-- ones that would make less noise. Just before Thanksgiving, I made it to the discount shoe store.
"Do you have any tennis shoes with really thick soles?" I asked. I figured that tennis shoes would stay on my feet better, and therefore make less noise than my usual clogs.
"Oh, yes, we have some that are very popular."
Internally, I groaned. I did not want to look like a seventh-grader, or like I was trying to look like a seventh-grader. I LIKE being a grown-up, and I like looking like a grown-up, and blending in with the kids just seemed like a terrible idea to me.
However, after about forty minutes of denial and another fifteen of trying in vain to find anything else that would work, I was defeated: Fashionable Tennis Shoes were the best-fitting, and suited my back-and-bunion needs better than anything else in the store. The part that did not hurt my feelings was that they were about half the usual price of Klonky-But-Grownup shoes.
So I bought them, and I brought them home, but I wouldn't wear them to work yet. What if they needed to be broken in? Or at least, that's what I told myself. But less than a week later, we had a snow day, which gave me a chance to try them out on a two-hour walk. To my mild distress, they caused no problems whatsoever.
So I wore them to school.
You know how if you have a stain on your shirt, or your fly is unzipped, it can be hard for others not to look at you? That's how my feet were for the first, oh, three weeks of the Magical Tennis Shoes. And the comments went something like this:
"Ms. C, I like your shoes."
"Thank you."
"Ms. C, I like your shoes."
"Thank you."
"No, for REAL! I'm not kidding!"
"I know! Thank you!"
Because, how could I not know? I had three different children ask me where I had bought them, one of them twice, within those same first three weeks, besides all of the significant looks and the outright compliments.
And it is these same children, who are extremely trend-aware, who are (some of them) most likely to give me guff if I ask them to do something like: please sit down, or please stop touching another student, or please walk to class because the bell rang four minutes ago and you are the last one in the hall. And when I'm wearing these shoes? They are MUCH more likely to listen. Thus they are magical not just because they make young people listen, but because it is the very young people whom I most need to listen, who listen.
Last summer, when I was visiting family in the Intermountain West, I happened to pack a plaid shirt in my things, and on one particular day when I was visiting a cousin who literally lives in the country, I happened to wear that shirt. I just thought that family might appreciate a nod to their Western sensibility. And by the end of my visit to that particular household, my cousin's wife gave me a goodbye hug-- a real hug, and I was super happy about it, because to me it meant that I had been accepted, and that they knew I accepted them.
I don't know what the shirt meant to my cousin-- not really-- and I am completely sure that I don't know the full cultural implications of my magical tennis shoes. But if these items of clothing help those around me to feel loved and accepted, they will have a place in my wardrobe for a long, long time.
(Yes, pictures soon. I tried to put up a scan of my lunch-tray drawing, but it turned out that it was in the wrong format. Thank you for your patience!)
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