Back to School

Greetings Dear Ones!

It’s that happy time of year when clothing everywhere is on sale and the children are being rounded up, put on buses, and taken off to government-sponsored institutions where they can’t annoy their parents for six hours a day.  A recent influx of school uniforms to hem has set off a wave of nostalgia in me. Prudence Thimbleton smooths a plaid skirt, sniffs, and notes with satisfaction that the Catholics of today are looking just as lumpy and awkward as they did a hundred years ago when she was in school.  And girls are still fighting with their mothers about how high the hem should be.  In the spirit of “Back to School,” having gotten stuck behind a big yellow bus trundling its shipment of little inmates to the local primary school during my morning commute, I decided it would be fun to stop everything and issue a pop quiz to you, dear readers, to see how well you have been paying attention.  Nothing strikes terror into the heart of one who has not studied like hearing that there is a pop quiz, eh? We are all life-long learners.  We should expect pop-quizzes:

1.       My goal in getting you to do this quiz is:

a.       To satisfy the whims of my inner “teacher” who traded her chalkboard for tailor’s chalk and really misses getting to be bossy

b.      To make you think seriously about the glamorously decadent life of a seamstress

c.       To distract you from rummaging through your closets, examining your Fall wardrobe for stuff to bring here for us to fix (Please, no!  We are swamped….)

d.      To help you squander just a little more time before you break down and start doing the thing you really SHOULD be doing right now, instead of taking mindless quizzes.

2.       This is a service industry.  As such, the Customer is always:

a.       Right

b.      Late

c.       Confused about whether or not she can enter by the back door and if it is open but there is no sign

d.      All of the above

3.       When people see the large sign out in front of our shop, indicating that there is parking in the rear, they typically:

a.       Park in the rear lot

b.      Park at the neighbor’s house (on private property)

c.       Park on the sidewalk

d.      Park right in the road, ignoring the honks and extended middle digits of passing local drivers

e.      All of the above, but mostly b, c, or d.

4.       When one delicately points out that a customer has chosen an unsanctioned and inconvenient (for others) parking spot he or she will:

a.       Immediately spring to park somewhere else, with gracious apologies and gratitude for the information

b.      Tell me “I’m only going to be a minute,” in a tone whose subtext is actually, “I don’t give a rip, the heck with other people…”

c.       Mumble that it is too far to walk from the back of the parking lot all the way to the door (these are usually people dressed in athletic gear)

d.      Just keep talking as if she/he has not heard

5.       The people most likely to park in the back of the building and make the “long walk” to the front entrance are:

a.       The elderly

b.      The infirm

c.       The disabled

d.      Anyone except the robust looking woman in a velour jumpsuit on her way to the gym.

6.       We inform every customer at least 14 times when he or she drops off clothing to be fixed that we “don’t take plastic” (i.e. we don’t take credit or debit cards for payment). To a man, woman, and child, they smile and nod and say things like “oh, right! Good to know!”  Upon pick-up, when it is time to pay for services rendered, they invariably:

a.       Whip out a credit card and act stunned/miffed/insulted that we cannot accept it

b.      Ask if we take Venmo or Paypal instead

c.       Inform us that no one uses money anymore

d.      All of the above

7.       We don’t take credit cards because:

a.       The surcharge on cards is too great—there is not a large profit margin on hemming a pair of pants and people would squeal if we raised the prices.

b.      We are hoarding suitcases of cash in unmarked bills so that we can all disappear to Argentina after next Prom season.

c.       It is God’s honest truth that we who are clever enough to put a new two-way waterproof zipper in your decrepit anorak are simply too stupid to figure out how to make that “square” thing work on a phone with a slow-speed internet service.  We’ve tried. Over and over. We are good at what we do.  Technology isn’t what we do.  (Remember, we are those loveable, anachronistic creatures who still remember how to sew.)

d.      All of the above

8.       We are all working with quiet industry on our various projects when out of the blue, one of the seamstresses will mention a customer we have not clapped eyes on for months.  That customer then:

a.       Is never seen again

b.      Appears within 90 minutes or less with a heap of pants he needs to have hemmed by the next day. He proceeds to prance about in the dressing room for the next 45 minutes, trying to decide if one of his legs is maybe a wee bit shorter than the other…or maybe it is longer?

9.       Having accidentally realized our incredible powers to “MAN-ifest,” we decide to “Woman-ifest” and summon a customer we REALLY want to see: namely, the Cookie Lady, who once brought us a plate of freshly baked cookies to thank us.  She only did this once but we have called her “The Cookie Lady” in hushed and reverent tones ever since.  We focus our intentions on her and her glorious oven and she:

a.       Is never seen again

b.      Comes in six months later with some sweaters she wants mended for her dog (and no cookies…)

10.   We handle several wedding parties every month, all year round.  Normal Bridal sadism includes but is not limited to:

a.       Insisting all her bridesmaids buy a $300 dress they will NEVER wear again that needs $90 worth of alterations and is a color that makes healthy twenty-somethings look like they are in liver failure.

b.      Insisting they all wear dumb shoes that match and hurt their feet

c.       Crash dieting and snapping at everyone because she is “Hangry”

d.      Dropping a dress size at every fitting and then complaining about the cost of alterations

11.   Normal Bridal Sadism should NOT include (but sometimes does)

a.       Forcing a pregnant or nursing bridesmaid to wear the same  dress as everyone else, regardless of what must be done to make it fit her—like buying a second dress and sewing two together (Don’t laugh—we do it!)

b.      Asking her not to bring her nursing infant to the wedding as “children aren’t included”

c.       Insisting the bridesmaids all learn a dance routine they will have to perform at the reception—hemlines have to be up so no one trips.

d.      Insisting that the bride’s mother come dressed as a punk rocker, despite said Mother’s weeping and protestations in the fitting room.

12.   A man comes in to have three pairs of pants hemmed.  He goes into the fitting room to change. When he opens the door, I discover:

a.       A man wearing pants that are too long for him

b.      A sheepish grin on his face

c.       A pile of mystery “powder” all over the floor

d.      All of the above

13.   The mystery “powder” is

a.       Gold Bond (Extra strong Mint) powder with which he has enthusiastically powdered his nether regions

b.      Foot powder that has fallen out of his shoes like snow

c.       God knows what else

d.      All of the above

14.   The pants he is trying on are black.  After we are done pinning the first pair, he agrees to try the grey pair.  When the door opens again,  I now discover:

a.       He has hung the Black pair neatly on a hanger

b.      He has thrown the black pair on the floor and stepped all over them, covering them with white powdery foot prints

c.       He wants to know how much it will be to dry-clean pants he has never worn yet

d.      All his clothing is now covered in powder

e.      B,C,and D, but not A

15.   It’s raining cats and dogs.  A customer leaves the shop and dashes out to her car.  She is back in moments, asking if she can use our phone because:

a.       She cannot get to her phone

b.      She is locked out of her car

c.       She needs to call her husband (who is asleep IN THE CAR)

d.      All of the Above

16.   Which of the following statements is NOT true?

a.       Tailors are called “Cutters” because the Latin root taliare means “to cut”

b.      Being a tailor is fabulously lucrative—a highly admired trade with enviable social standing

c.       Tailors have a bunion named after them

17.    From the corner of a tailoring shop, one can see:

a.       A drug deal going down outside

b.      That your pants desperately need to be taken in

c.       Little slivers of the whole wide world

d.      All of the above

18.   The more one gets into the details of a tiny task and focuses on perfection:

a.       The more one achieves Zen mastery

b.      The less the customer will notice

c.       The more likely one is to thirst for adult beverages

19.   The most important Lesson I have learned from working as a Seamstress so far is:

a.       That pretty much every problem can be solved

b.      If you keep cutting, it will still be too short

c.       I’m not very good but at least I’m slow!

d.      I REALLY need to remove all the pins I have poked into my heavily padded bra, the Victoria Secret Bombshell that, in haste, makes a perfect double-barreled pin cushion, before I go to the grocery store!

20.   From sewing, or from ANY job you do that involves people, problems, and solutions, it is possible to learn:

a.       That people are nuts and you’re one of them

b.      That you would prefer to be a Hermit

c.       Compassion and Commitment to Excellence (whether it is appreciated or not)

d.      All you ever need to know about love and life and Being Awake in this lifetime

e.      All of the above

Well, it’s time to tally your score.  Give yourselves a hundred points for every correct answer and then scale your grades in the following manner, according to this rather warped “Bell” (ha ha)(couldn’t resist) curve:

If you are a Baby Boomer:  Well, you’ve worked hard, as you have your whole life probably.  We have you to thank for so many things but we still haven’t forgiven you for being the generation that thought it was a good idea to put linoleum over hardwood floors… Stick to wearing pleats and give yourself a B-

Gen X: You didn’t do quite as well as you could have, or should have.  You never do. You tried, of course you did, but your cynical vigilance just didn’t pay off this time.  Born too late to have Real Character and too soon to have digital skills, you are just beepers in a cell-phone world.  You could take the test again but it wouldn’t do you any good. I have bad news for you: waistline heights are going back up and you get a C+

Millennials: Congratulations! You Showed up.  Give yourself full marks just for breathing.  You did great. You Are Great.  Your trophy is in the mail. Nothing more is expected of you today—relax and get back on Snap Chat.  Don’t even THINK about tapering your pants again. You’re Done! A+

Gen Z: Ok, Homeschooler—you’re too smart already. Hand the phone back to Mummy or Daddy—don’t forget to reprogram it first so he or she can use it again without having to summon a Millenial. Please spend some of your day learning to sew!!!

Be well, my Darlings, and do Good Work!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Some Random Thoughts on Chaos

Greetings Dear Ones!

You know when you look out the window and see not one but TWO of your customers attempting (simultaneously) to park on the sidewalk in front of the shop, despite a Large, Clearly-Printed Sign indicating that there is a parking lot in the rear of the building, that either a.) you now reside in Italy, or b.) a big load of Chaos is about to walk in the door. These are not people who follow The Rules. 

You might think anyone such as myself, who owns not one but THREE Jack Russells, is no stranger to Chaos.  And it is true.  Chaos and I have more than a passing acquaintance with one another.  I do all the chaos-inducing activities like work with animals and children and people who think they still have the same inseam they had when they were sixteen.   But the chaos in the shop is a whole new breed! 

I like Order.  Order is safe, predictable.  In the realm of Order, people behave, machines behave, and we are stable, calm, and competent.  Order is having a place for everything and everything in its proper place. We can find things like seam rippers, safety pins, and knitting needles without having to sit on them and be surprised. We don’t have to spend half an hour crawling on our hands and knees to find the female side of a snap that has vanished into thin air.  Order is good lighting, clean surfaces, and cheery civility with strangers who participate willingly in mutually-agreed social protocols.  It is wearing one’s undergarments as God intended them to be worn.

Order is also about having time. It is NOT someone arriving unannounced at five minutes to five with a full bridal party for a gown fitting, or insisting that you need your new jeans to cleave to your bum like a second skin by Friday. “There’s more to life than fitting in your jeans,” croons pop singer Ed Sheeran but some of these folks aren’t buying it.  Fitting in their jeans is Very Important to them.  They want it to happen NOW.  So is having their Harley Davidson patches sewn on their leather jackets while they wait.  People are constantly and randomly dashing in to stop us from The Thing We Are Doing and diverting our course to Something Else.  We try to stick to a plan but we know what happens when mice and men plan… Mainly that neither has a suit ready for the weekend! Chaos is the journey to the underworld, where bobbin goblins live. It’s the tragedy that strikes suddenly that means a bride no longer needs her wedding gown after all.  It’s the man who forgets he has a screwdriver in his pocket and sits down. It’s the black gunk shooting out of the iron all over the hundred-year-old christening gown you just restored.

The phone is ringing off the hook today.  A lady calls.  She cannot find her shoes.  She leaves an extended message on the answering machine about all the places her shoes might be, one of which might be our shop.  The next beep is her saying that she checked her own closet and they were there. (Unexpected Order. Which is another name for Chaos, really.) The cleaners call us. They have lost a purple dress.  We do have a purple dress that we cannot determine an owner for but alas, it is not the purple dress they seek.  It seems that there are two rogue purple dresses at large in the universe, perhaps many more.  We have been trying for the past two weeks to determine the owner of our mystery dress.  Few things are more mortifying than phoning a series of previous customers who have already picked up their orders, asking them if they are missing a purple dress.  It smacks of something slipshod, a lack of Order.

The interruptions don’t stop. A girl comes in the door.  My friend, who has spent a portion of her morning receiving hacked emails from a person who died three years ago, looks at the appointment book and asks “Are you a Bride named Bethany?” “No,” she says, “I’m a Maid called Melanie,” and we all burst out laughing as if we are part of a “Who’s on First” skit. We no sooner get her shuffled off to the fitting room with her gown, when a woman comes in and wants her blouse altered.  “I really like this blouse,” she says wistfully, “but not enough to stop eating.”

I survey the devolving organization of our time and work space and decide to learn what I can about Chaos theory.   To my utter dismay, it has something to do with Math.  Ever since Sr. Davidica’s reign of terror in eighth grade, I have thought I cannot “do math.”  The truth is, I “do” math every damn day.  We all do.  Math is one of the representations of Order throughout our world.  It provides the foundation for Geometry, Physics, and how to make correct change for customers who pay cash.  Apparently, it also says that things can change unpredictably, without warning.  It turns out that Chaos theory “is a branch of mathematics focusing on the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions.”  I think this means that we need to start, not only at the exact same starting point, but in the identical conditions for an action to be predictable and even then, it isn’t.  In real life, this seems nearly impossible. Take leaving for work:

The Same thing happens every day, in that I leave my humble homestead in a 2006 Subaru (I know, I wish it could be a horse and carriage too… or an ox-cart!) and head to my place of employment.  I am that theoretical pendulum heading out to work and back.  However, the infinite variety of initial conditions changes the potential outcome and determines whether or not I drive with one hand on the wheel, one hand on the accelerator, with both feet flying out behind me or have the leisure time to put my lipstick on at red lights, like sane people. The initial variables include anything from not finding my car keys, the level of caffeine in my bloodstream, or discovering a dead sheep just before it is time to leave.

Having made it to work, somehow, by the stroke of nine, we show up each day, not just to hem men’s trousers and discuss ladies’ undergarments. (Not with the men who are there to have trousers hemmed! “Heaven forbid,” says Prudence!) We are there save Humanity, one pair of pants at a time, and to be a force for Good in this world.  We are here to Love and Serve. To listen, comprehend, then transform your personal Chaos manifesting as a broken zipper. Working with us and against us are the forces of Order and Chaos themselves.

Order is using a machine, exactly as you have always used it, expecting the same result.  Chaos is finding out that you have just stitched approximately ten miles with no bobbin thread. And removed all the pins as you went.  For those of you unfamiliar with what a bobbin is, it is a tiny spool of thread that operates underneath the needle, unseen, in synchrony with the upper, visible needle. What it does for real, besides snaggle and rip itself out is anybody’s guess.  I leave the rest to your imagination.  All you really need to understand (all anyone does, really) is that not having one is a Bad Thing.  Bobbins are part of the underworld of sewing.  They work in darkness and they sometimes do good things—like magically making nice stitches underneath the fabric.  But mostly, they are just the Devil’s dice.  Having one last around an entire hem is like a benediction from the sewing angels.  It’s like finding a lucky penny.  It’s a Sign from Heaven that you are Loved and that All is Well.

All day long, we tread the borderland between Order and Chaos.  We have all the thread in color-coded racks on the wall—hundreds of spools.  Instantly find the right shade and this is Order.  Forget to put it back, Chaos.   Our attempts to straddle this fundamental duality is what Balance is all about.

I wake each morning striving for Balance; I let the dogs out to empty themselves in the garden (Order) so they don’t do it on the rug (Chaos).  I feed the sheep and chickens in their pens—fences are the Order containing Chaos.  I attempt to connect equally with the Yin and the Yang nature of existence.  However, when I have one foot on a clean carpet and one foot in Dog poop, I do not feel balanced. Life suddenly reveals itself as intense, gripping, yet ultimately meaningless.   I want to scream.  I feel like smearing their little hairy bodies in gravy and leaving them outside for the Natural Order to reassert itself in the form of a hungry bobcat or coyote.  Who are we to allow these canine fugitives from the Natural Law to soil our carpets? But I digress…

We are always in the known territory, surrounded by the unknown.  And the Chaos, like junk mail on your kitchen counter, encroaches with every breath.  I remember helping my father mending fences on the family farm.  He once paused from wrestling with a particularly thick bittersweet vine, sweat dripping from his brow, and surveyed his land.  His shoulders sagged a little as he said, “In ten years, left alone, no one would ever even know this farm was here.  The vines would eat it all away.  There would be nothing left.”  It’s hard to believe that Chaos won’t eventually win.  I feel the same way about dirty laundry.  And so it is in the shop.  Entropy is at work every day.  We think we are there to patch holes and tailor designer fashions. No.  We are there to labor against Chaos and Entropy and jab at it with our little pins, one pair of jeans at a time, until it is finally five o’clock and it is time to go home and find that the lawn has eaten the house, the dogs have eaten the garbage, and more junk mail has arrived in our absence.  

But…. SOMETIMES….When time passes, and all the right tools are at hand, and the phone is not ringing, and we find ourselves at one with the needle and thread thimble-driven through the silk, when we get so engrossed in what we are doing that we no longer notice we are doing it—it is there and then that we are located precisely between the Order and the Chaos.  We are in the zone.  We are the embodiment of Zen, of Tao, of Beingless Being.  And then, from these tiniest of views, we may absorb the biggest pictures.

Order and Chaos are the two most basic, binary subdivisions of Being.  No matter what you do, if you love and serve your fellow men and women, you are battling the forces of Chaos, for the Chaos is within them, as well as you.  The tide is against Order.  You have your own bobbin goblins aplenty.  And yet, despite relentless and overwhelming Chaos, we all continue to strive in hope for Order, for Serenity.  It is what the multi-billion dollar industry in self-help books and clean closets is all about.  There is something Holy and sanctifying in this struggle.  All of us, attempting to build, help, or heal; nourish or nurture; patch or tuck—when  we call forth Order from the Chaos that surrounds us, when we use our words to create actions, and actions to create results, we are not only as deeply human as we can get, we are also participating in the Divine.  We revisit Genesis.  We are co-Creators.

Be well, my dearies! And do Good Work!

Yours aye,

Nancy

Who Buys Your Clothes?

Greetings Dear Ones!

“I’m having second thoughts about this outfit,” says a middle-aged, frumpy woman who has squeezed herself into a skin-tight neon pink and orange neoprene dress adorned with gigantic zippers that look like barracuda teeth.  “It’s for my son’s wedding in two weeks’ time and I just don’t know…”  Her shoulders slump as she turns to consider herself in the mirror.  “I just don’t know why I bought this… What do you think?  Does this even look Ok?”

“Is your son getting married in a tank?” I want to know.  Prudence Thimbleton shuffles up to the nearest eyeball to look out, aghast.  From the neck down, this woman looks like she should be feeding dolphins at Sea World.   On her feet, we expect to see flippers, instead of bargain pumps from Payless Shoes.  From the neck up, she looks like any other dowdy citizen of Frazzletown, with mouse grey hair parted in the middle and hanging lankly to her damp neck.  Her lips purse, her forehead wrinkles delicately.   She is confused but I know exactly what happened:  She fell asleep at the wheel and let her inner Party Goblin go shopping without her.   Some voice in her head told her she needed to make a Big Splash at her son’s wedding—or at least masquerade as if one was imminent.  Hence the dress tighter than scuba gear and made of the same material.  We have been seeing a lot of neoprene dresses lately.  They are oddly popular, out here in the wretched provinces, so many miles from the coast.  Perhaps people are taking the rise in sea levels a bit too seriously… perhaps fashion designers just decided to make the whole outfit into a version of Spanx.  In any case, I have yet to see a woman look like she is actually enjoying the physical sensation of wearing a wetsuit in high heels.  Many women, in dressing for their offspring’s wedding, panic and try their hand at wearing some sort of “power” outfit that is outside their normal scope.  (Ladies, is this really the time for that?) Perhaps this woman feels that the other females attending the wedding—her ex-husband’s new wife, the mother of the Bride, and crabby Aunt Sue are gnarly mermaids she must subdue?  Maybe, subconsciously she wants this vaguely dominatrix outfit to convey a message that she raised a son, so nothing scares her, not even cake…

“Is there anything you can do to this dress to make it look more feminine?” she wants to know.  “All these nickel zippers… in the light of day, it looks…well, a little aggressive…”  Yes.  Yes, it does.  It looks like a shark has gnawed on her, lost most of its teeth, then burped her forcibly back onto shore, hitting a sherbet truck.  Her inner dolphin trainer, who chose this outfit, is probably off water-skiing, or sleeping off an overindulgence of pineapple-infused rum and left her inner Little Old Lady to pick up the pieces.  The bewildered person standing in the dressing room is not familiar with briny buckets of smelt; she is a baker of bread, a church-goer, a respectable citizen who wears sensible shoes and never gets library book fines.  She does not understand why she bought this dress.  None of us do.

Many’s the time Prudence Thimbleton  has wanted to ask a customer, “Pardon me, Madam, I’m just curious…exactly what part of that little ensemble you have put together made you look in the mirror, sigh with satisfaction, and say YES… This is how I choose to represent myself today?”  Or, in this case, “is this how you wish to be commemorated for all time in the wedding album?  Did you not get the memo that the Mother of the Groom is supposed to shut up and wear beige?”

But I get it.  Truly, I do.  I feel for this woman who let her inner Party Goblin and inner Dolphin Trainer get together over a few too many pina coladas and make this choice she now regrets.  We all have rogue inner ingénues who show up and toss crap into the cart at TJ Maxx, or late-night click on items from Nordstrom’s that we would never dream of purchasing in the light of day when our more sensible monitors are in charge. Nothing makes me thirstier for adult beverages than taking all my clothes, one by one, throwing them on the floor and realizing that I have Nothing to Wear.    Well, nothing that the “me” who has shown up that day really likes.   Nor is that “me” entranced by the idea of running naked for the rest of the day.  (These are the days I not only hate all my clothes, but the body that goes into them too.)   You may not know this about me, but I have a team of personal shoppers whose job it is to squander my money filling my closet with crap I do not like that does not fit.

Ralph Lauren is quoted as saying “Fashion is about something that comes from within you.”  Well, what if what you have “within” is a cast of sadistic demons and giddy trollops?    Perhaps you have a few of these characters too? There’s the inner anorexic  all hopped up on Dexatrim who convinced you that you would actually be a size six by June (she lied) and told you that you would need that full-price silk skirt you will never wear but can’t get rid of.  (That is not a garment as much as it is a monument to hope and disillusionment.) She also begs you not to discard those slacks that have not fit you since the eighth grade.  She is a skinny little hoarder.  Getting even with her is the chubby girl who retaliates by buying an assortment of maxi-dresses that might as well be burlap sacks.   Then, there is your inner Grandmother knitting you wooly confections out of homespun yarn—capes and shawls and woolen slip-covers as if you live on the Nebraska Prairie in 1850. (Wait, maybe that’s just me?)  The inner hippie just adores all those one-size-fits-most (most what? Animals? Vegetables? Minerals?) Indonesian batik dresses—the scraps of which are turned into table cloths for Pottery Barn.  And who bought all these suits? Were you ever in business? Are you secretly a corporate lawyer in your spare time?  I don’t think so.  Tiny little Exercise outfits?  Why so many of these with tags still on?  Why the mounds of tattered, paint- stained, sit-on-the-couch-binge-watching-Netflix-and-eating-Swiss-Cake-Rolls clothes in every size?  Church clothes, 18th Century Clothes, 1940’s dresses, Vintage Velvet Hippie dresses--WHAT are we supposed to wear to work Today?  You’ve got everything from “Geriatric Cave-dweller” to “Pole Dancer”--Why do none of your fashion “statements” say “Competent, Highly-trained, and Capable Professional”?  You are letting the wrong goblins shop for you.   

When we say “I have nothing to wear,” what we really mean is that “there is nothing here for who I am supposed to be today.” I might have to masquerade as a Responsible Guardian at a parent-teacher conference; or as a person who does NOT deserve that speeding ticket, or someone who turned down a movie deal on the way to her son’s soccer practice.  (You can take that last one as anything on the spectrum from “getting the starring role as an actress in a movie to deciding not to buy one of the discounted DVD’s in the bargain bucket at Wal-Mart.)  I might just need to be a Matriarchal Tree Sprite, or an innocent Five-year-old who likes any color as long as it’s purple, or some unfortunate throw-back to the Eighties, with shoulder pads that would be the envy of any linebacker.  I have no idea who I am going to show up as…

When I was growing up, my options were more limited.  I had three choices:  school uniform, church dress, or barn clothes for doing chores on the family farm.  I could only be three people—student, sinner, or serf.   My mother bought all our clothes.  She was a savvy bargain hunter who bought things “big” so they would last longer before they were handed down. I went off to college and had no idea how to wear anything that wasn’t plaid.  It’s been a problem ever since.  The people in my head are not always the people who want to wear what is in my closet.   The people I have to show up as, as a Responsible Adult, are not always the people who run amok in a thrift store with my credit card.  Consequently, I have plenty of options for the inner Tree Sprite to wear while she fiddles on a tree stump but few of these attires could be worn in public.  (She is a close cousin of the inner Trollop who likes shoes that are bad for the knees.)  Crabbit Prudence Thimbleton watches all this with a wary eye—the inner Church Lady on alert for dubious hemlines and sensual impulses.  

I learn a lot from the customers who come in with their own struggles, whether they are frumpy, frazzled mothers of grooms or trendy young men exercising their God-given right to look dapper.  I am delighted to see the number of youthful souls coming into the shop to revise their “look” and fit and to create a wardrobe that reflects their individual sensibilities, however odd they may seem to those over the age of forty.  The cleverest among them are up-cycling clothing from second-hand shops and bringing it to us to refine, revive, or revise according to their needs.  It’s refreshing to see that our clothing chooses us just as much as we choose it. People simply glow when an outfit is “Them.”

From my standpoint as witness in the fitting room, I realize that these aspects of our Being are not just roles we are playing.  Our clothes are not simply costumes that help portray us as hero, clown, martyr, or lost child.  They are part of the complexity of us as humans—part of why we frustrate ourselves so much and potentially a source of delight too.   We LOVE it when we get to wear the thing that sings “ME.”   Self-awareness is the antidote to self-obsession.  Who are we? What do we really need? How do we want others to see us? Do we really want to wear something that gives us more opportunities for penance than a medieval hair shirt? We have to work today with today’s best answers to today’s questions.  The answers might change for us tomorrow.  That does not matter. 

When we are triggered to abandon some part of ourselves—to condemn the Inner Trollop, Pixie, Sinner, or Saint—it is a form of self-mutilation.   When we have no idea who is buying our clothes—we have lost touch with all the vibrant, creative, eccentric, insecure, reckless and bizarre parts of ourselves who are calling us to see them, to welcome them home.  We all have these fabulous  fashion archetypes lurking in our minds and closets—from tweedy professors to harlots.  And we are Bigger Yet, far bigger than the sum of all of them. We cannot abandon these selves to wordless fears and judgments—“did I do something wrong by being authentically who I am? Does this dress make me unlovable ? Will I be fired if I wear comfortable shoes to a board meeting?” These questions are not based in Love.  If we begin to live just one day at a time, with our most heart-centered wisdom in This moment, we can trust that the best learning will come to us from whatever decisions we make.  When we know and LOVE  All of who we are, we will know exactly what to wear.  And whoever shops for us will be Ok.

Rock on, Inner Dolphin Trainers!

Be well, my darlings, and do Good Work!

Yours aye,

Nancy

It's the little things...

Greetings Dear Ones!

I am beginning to think I was not meant to be a saint by doing little things.  “BIG things, done with Great Flourishes…things that can be done quickly and impressively, with the stroke of a magic wand, or a sword…things that involve galloping horses or fire...these seem like they would suit me better,” I think sourly, as I round hour thirty-nine of what will become a forty-five hour job to remove all the lace from the bottom of the scalloped hem of a wedding gown, only so I can slash six inches off the bottom and start sewing all that lace back on.  I look intently at the seam ripper I am using and wonder if it is strong enough to open a radial artery.  I simply cannot go on… The sun spins by the window and the colors of the days shift like a kaleidoscope.  And yet this chore drags...  I have no memory of breakfast, no plans for lunch, no memory of my former life.  I have no children, no pets, no houseplants gasping for water on my windowsills…All I have ever done and all I shall ever do forevermore is remove the lace from this damn gown.

The lace has been stitched on with a clear strand of a filament, like finest fishing line, in dizzying circles, over and over and over itself, anchoring five yards of this frilly ornament to a piece of fragile tulle as if it must one day withstand the force of the Apocalypse. The shop feels like it is 105 degrees Fahrenheit and I am trying not to get my sweat or blood (from jabbed fingers) on material that shreds if I pull on it too hard.  Each stitch must be picked out carefully with tweezers—and the only way I can see it properly is to have magnifying glasses and a hot white light held inches above it. A subtle variation in sheen is my only clue that a thread is there.

The other ladies are working briskly—machines are whirring, steam from the iron punctuates their progress with pronounced hisses.  Hangers click on the racks as they finish mending one item after another.  The shop hums with productivity and progress. Except in my corner.  Hidden behind this frothy mountain, I think about the stories I read as a child—about how bags of millet were mixed with bags of sand and friendly ants helped the kindly heroine (who had saved them all just that morning) sort it all before the witch came back.  I could use some helpful ants now!  These stitches are just the right size for ants.  I pick away steadily, bitterly, knowing that there is no way out but Through.  The only witch here is me.

 Growing up, I remember hiding out in the bathroom during afternoon chores at the barn with a book my sister had received as a prize for winning her class spelling bee.  It was called The Lives of the Saints and it was filled with thrilling tales of martyrdom and valor, courage and bravery—all the goriest details of their triumphs over worldly temptations and devils in the form of misguided town magistrates. There was not a single mention of achieving glory via lace removal. The closest saint was St. Therese of Lisieux, “The Little Flower,” who, like Mother Theresa, understood the importance of doing “little things with great love.”

Ah… Love!  That’s what I am missing!  I have no love for this lace, this gown, nor the modern Fairytale tradition of dressing women up in fabric mountains worth thousands of dollars so that they can pretend to be a Princess for a day. 

When my children were little, I read to them every night before bed.  One night, I read my son a classic fairy tale about three sons who went out to seek their fortunes in the big bad world.  The first two sons quite predictably squander their fortunes and imperil their lives by attempting to win the hand of a Princess, whose evil father puts them under an enchantment when they fail.  It falls to the youngest brother to survive the tasks set before him and to free his enchanted brothers.  He is a good and wise son and is probably doing this just to make his mother happy, since it does not seem that these older brothers were all that nice to him and he is the only one to leave the cottage with his mother’s blessing. Though he is younger and smaller and weaker, he is clearly her favorite.  Now that I think of it, this is probably the sort of story told in days of yore to mollify bullied younger brothers… but I digress.  We read pages and pages about the youngest brother’s courage and wit and cleverness and in the end he triumphs, mostly due to his strong Moral Character.  I read with rising and falling drama in my voice as we near the conclusion.  When I get to the end, where I say “and so the wicked King could do no more.  He gave the Princess’s hand in marriage to the youngest brother and they all lived happily ever after.”   My son five-year-old son is scowling.  He had been all in during the deeds of valor, cheering for the youngest brother all the way as he rode horses of various colors up glass mountains and whatnot, but now his eyes are hot and dark and he looks scornful. Something about the ending has greatly displeased him. I am curious.  Is it that women should Not be given as prizes? (No, they should NOT)  Is it that no one could hope to live happily ever after with a father-in-law like that? Is it that the older brothers don’t say thank you?  I ask him what bothers him about the story. He pauses, shakes his head, and says “that poor boy…that poor, poor boy.”

I pry a little more. After all, the boy marries the princess and becomes a prince. He wins! What’s the problem? Finally, my son looks at me with his clear, blue eyes, and begins to explain: “He won a princess.  Princesses are a lot of work.  They need princess shoes, a princess dress, a fancy bed with lots of mattresses and no peas—not just a regular bed.  They need all the princess versions of everything.  This is going to cost him a lot of money.  He’s going to be poor again in no time.  I wish the prize was just a bag of money he could share with his mother so they would not be poor.  Now they have to take care of a whole Princess and princesses cost a lot of money.” He shakes his head sadly and sighs. Needless to say, I nearly wet my pants at the notion that my frugal five-year-old is an authority on the fiduciary constraints of royalty.  

So I read the same story to my seven-year-old daughter and she has no problem with it.  She loves to talk about princesses and to dress like one as often as she can from the overflowing trunk of dress-up outfits I have made for her and her neighborhood ladies-in-waiting.  She smiles. Princesses are supposed to be expensive and beautiful and glamorous.  Who wants to be a pre-pumpkin Cinderella? No One. For her, the Moral Character is not as important as the glass slippers and the glittering gown, the bigger and more sparkly the better! 

Remembering how these separate genders responded to fairytales as children makes me smile as I sit picking lace.   What are weddings anyway but an excuse to spend a whole lot of money so that a girl can be a Princess for a day?  A castle, or something vaguely resembling a castle, must be rented; court musicians must be hired; linens for two-hundred and fifty guests must coordinate within two Sherwin-Williams paint shades of the bridal bouquet; and a Royal Banquet with an open bar must be served.  All because two people love each other and need to share a Health-Care Policy. Does the groom want all this?  I suspect he would rather have a pony. Or a small sack of gold.  Probably the sack of gold. But no, everyone pretends for a day that they now have a kingdom.  The rival Kings and Queens and their significant others are summoned by royal proclamations printed on hand-stamped parchment and encouraged to part with many sacks of gold.  Guests are encouraged to purchase items for the palace from a Registry—so as not to let their own lack of taste interfere with the required furnishings of the royal household. The female inner seven-year-old is saying Finally, I get to stuff my little piggies into some itty-bitty shoes and wear the BIGGEST damn glittering gown I can find, while every inner five-year-old man within reach of his wallet is groaning and saying “I wish I had just ridden away on that golden horse while I had the chance! Why did I do all those feats of valor?”   

For whatever reason, we as a species need to convince ourselves that Magic really happens, that champagne is as good as derma-bond at sealing two souls together for life, and that if a girl gets to have a good party dress for a day, she won’t really notice that she will have to spend the next sixteen years of her life as the grubby version of Cinderella, driving her bickering brats to soccer practice in a minivan that smells vaguely of dried ketchup and dead hermit crabs.

I sigh and look down at the gown all over my table and lap and legs.  This particular Princess has no idea how long this is taking.  She has no idea how much work this is.  Her mother has been in twice already to complain about how much the rest of the wedding is costing, delivering the not-so-subtle subtext that we are the serfs who should not expect to get paid much for this, this little “hem”—the napkin rental alone has already cost her plenty. I think seriously about the energy I am putting into this gown and realize that it is full of grumbles, not good wishes.  I need to restore my own faith in magic, in the Fairy Tale of “Happily Ever After,” not “Grudgingly Ever After, Until Debt Do Us Part.”  

I know that our energy inhabits our work, long after it is finished—that everything we do receives our blessing or our curse, whether we want it to or not.   We can taste the love in food others cook especially for us.  We can feel the love in hand-knit socks hugging our feet. We can see the love in a neatly made bed with the pillows fluffed just so, or a love note packed in with our lunch.  We know that little things done with Great Love bring the most happiness to our aching lives.  It is good for our own souls to do this, no matter how tedious the task, no matter it may be received by others, or not noticed at all. We are, every one of us, magical creatures.

I DO want this dress to be a blessing—since I am not allowed to set fire to it—so I settle my mind around an old rallying cry of “if you can’t get out of it, get into it.”  I learned this many times, growing up, having been discovered in the bathroom with The Lives of the Saints while the barn chores weren’t getting done.  I surrender and give myself The Speech: The work does not do itself, Nancy.  It must be done and it must be done by YOU.  NOW.  So just do it.  With all the love you can muster.  If you can’t love the work, try to love the person you for whom you are doing it.  If you can’t do that; at least love yourself enough to do your best.  Take pride in your work, no matter how trivial or cosmically and existentially Absurd it may be.  One stitch or pitchfork at a time. Sometimes, Good People have to do Stupid Tasks and do them Well because it’s not about the work—it’s about the test of our spirits. At least that much of any fairytale is True!

Be well my Dearies! And do Good Work!

Yours aye,

Nancy

All Buttoned Up

Greetings my Dearies!

One of the biggest sources of shame I witness on a daily basis, besides the basic, garden variety forms of body shame, is around buttons. Why don’t people learn to sew on a button? I have yet to see a person come in to the shop to have a button re-sewn and plunk it down on the counter with an air of blithe confidence and cheery, self-respecting expectation.  No, they cringe, they apologize, they confess, they twist in torment that they did not think to swipe a hotel sewing kit when they had the chance in Rio…  (Whatever happened to having sewing kits at home?)  Why don’t people know how to do this?  They act like they should.  (“I agree, they Should,” rants crabby inner Prudence Thimbleton.  “What kind of Wasteful Slackers drive across town and pay the likes of you a whole Dollar to sew a button on? It’s disgraceful! No proper education is complete without knowledge of how to change a tire, how to make a simple meal, and how to sew on a button!)

I have told you not to expect any practical sewing information from this blog—as there are others out there who can do that so much better than I.  However, in this case, for the sake of alleviating Shame from my fellow men and women, I will offer a brief tutorial:  Firstly, a button needs to be what we call “shanked” if the button if it is to be used to actually close something.  It needs to accommodate the buttonhole. If you sew it flat up against your pants, there will be no room for anything to go under it and the strain on the thread will just make it pop off again. All you do to shank a button is hold it away from the fabric as you sew it on—hold at a distance that equals the thickness of the fabric to go under it.  For example, on a shirt, you might only hold it away the thickness of two pennies, for jeans, it might be as much as a quarter inch.  It’s a little bit of a balancing act to hold the button away as you sew it but if you can drive a motor vehicle and operate a microwave (not at the same time, of course!), you’ve done harder things. Stop whining. If you really want training wheels for this part, you can simply place a toothpick or match-stick over or under the button then stitch down over it into an adjacent hole, but who has time for that? A button usually has two or four holes; stitch until each pair of holes has been bound five or six times. A little trick—use three pieces of thread at one time in your needle. Then only stitch twice. Or use six threads and only stitch once.  (The math part of this is so fun.) However, a needle eye that can accommodate that number of threads at once is probably too big for your fabric.  You should use smaller needles and lighter threads on lighter fabrics. Six threads per hole should be plenty to hold a button securely. To make the shank, hold the needle and thread between the fabric and the button, remove the toothpick, if you used one, lift up the button, and wrap the thread tightly around the exposed threads between the button and the fabric several times until the button is standing up on a perky little “stalk” or shank. Tie off the thread under the button. I don’t actually tie a knot—I just use my needle to make the thread disappear off into the fabric and cut it.  There! Spread the word.  I don’t regret the loss of income one damn bit!

I spend an inordinate amount of my time sewing buttons on things.  Most of them, going four at a time on the outer sleeves of men’s sport coats, serve no purpose whatsoever, which vexes me.  Life is short.  What am I doing squandering my dwindling youth and strength and eyesight on vestigial buttons? In biological terms, their function has dwindled and been rendered meaningless by the evolution of the coat over time.  They remain as useless decoration only.

The Germanic hordes that brought the Roman Empire to its knees, eventually became so civilized that by the 13th century, they were the first to use buttons to keep their clothes on. Those clever Germans!  The idea gradually swept Europe and everyone has been buttoned up ever since.  Sleeve buttons became a thing in the 18th century, when sleeves were tighter than they are now—supposedly buttons helped one pass his hand through the sleeve.  Suit jackets followed masculine swagger of military uniform designs.

 I’m not sure this story is true—I defer to my friends who are actual fashion historians to corroborate or deny this tale.  If it is not true, at least it is a fun story—which is about all you can hope for in this wicked world. Supposedly a General—I’ve heard it was Frederick the Great, ruler of Prussia from 1740-1786; I’ve also heard it was Napoleon, liked nothing better than to ride out and survey his troops arranged in rows and neatly turned out in spotless uniforms. Marring the scene were these grubby soldiers who insisted on sweating, getting dirty, bleeding profusely, and—worst of all, in the days before Kleenex—wiping their snotty noses on their sleeves.  In order to keep the lads looking snappy, he ordered buttons sewn in rows on the bottoms of their sleeves so as to scratch them when they tried to mop the blood, sweat, or snot off their faces, in the hopes that the threat of minor physical pain could supply what basic public decency could not. More likely, buttoned sleeves may have enabled surgeons to give urgent treatments to injuries near the hands during battles.

In any case, until recently, men’s suit coats all came with working buttons and button holes on their sleeves. Not that long ago, in the days before casual or “button-down Fridays” turned into “no buttons, ever, everyday” and swiftly devolved into the current garb of the modern Wallmart Shopper, men wore jackets all the time, not just for business. A man’s shirt was considered his underwear.  Even farmers and day laborers and shopkeepers (ancestors of Wallmart employees) wore suit jackets. When exerting himself and getting hampered by his clothing, a man would roll up his sleeves, rather than remove his jacket. Taking off his jacket would be akin to stripping to his underwear—or a somewhat deranged 21st century woman painting the exterior of a three-storey house in her bikini (wait, that’s another story…)

Clothing was serious body protection from the elements and people, even men, wore aprons while working to protect it. Clothing represented a much higher percentage of a person’s personal budget and was highly valued. One of my favorite pastimes (right up there with eating homemade peach ice cream from Rota Spring Farm) is trolling the Old Bailey accounts online to read stories of “criminals” accused of stealing clothing in the 18th century. Fascinating stuff!  This is a great way to learn about what people were wearing and how it was valued in society and in the courts—the descriptions are sometimes hilarious.

All this to say that the buttonholes were cut (that means they worked—they weren’t pretend), the suits were individually made to spec and the sleeves could be rolled up.  Form followed function.  Modern bespoke and high-end (i.e. expensive) suit buttons still work. This is a chance for dapper dudes to wear one button undone so they can show off that it is a really good quality suit.  But most jackets today are not bespoke (made to order).  Off the rack jackets no longer have functional buttons or buttonholes—this is to facilitate tailoring them, i.e. make my job that much easier, so that I can cut the buttons off and lengthen or shorten the sleeves to suit either a man with the wing-span of a T-rex or a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. Manufacturers, in trying to accommodate everyone, have designed suits that fit no one. Buttons on those suits are purely decorative.

One can only surmise that these conspicuously useless (often made of plastic, yuck) buttons stay there for the same reason men wear ties--#1 it’s always been like that, #2 it looks vaguely natty, #3 most men are so baffled by matters sartorial that it never dawns on them to agitate for change, #4 they are too busy tapering their trousers into tourniquets from the knee down to notice.

In college, I used to eat lunch occasionally with one of my favorite philosophy professors. She was about 8 years older than my roommate and I, which seemed like a lot back then, but she seemed to enjoy our company.  I asked her what made her want to study philosophy. She said that she started graduate school as a biochemistry student but when she found herself on a research project that involved stroking the backs of centipedes until they peed into little vials, she knew that she needed to find something less pointless to do, hence Nietzsche and Goethe. Personally, I saw her life up close and I am not certain that lecturing to hung-over undergraduates about the contributions of Heraclitis and Aristotle to western thought was any less pointless. I observed her youth and idealism and how it was being squandered on exhausted people more interested in discovering the ancient Greek principles of Brotherhood out behind Lambda Chi Alpha and I thought there must be much more exciting things to do in this world. 

Um, yeah… like sewing on buttons.  Thirty years later, here I sit, on my buttons, sewing...  Buttons that don’t even close anything.  I might as well be stroking centipedes. 

We all have these meaningless little tasks involved in our work.  Sometimes the work is exciting—you get a big project, like your version of a wedding gown, and there is all this drama and pressure…  You spend four whole days removing lace that has been attached microscopically with fishing line and you are over budget before you even begin to hem the gown…  The mother of the Bride comes in, glaring at the bride and bellowing about how she has just been charged $600 for the rental of linens for the reception, and it’s not a good time to mention that the gown is taking a lot more time than anticipated… And time is money… well, not in this case, since no one will have the courage to tell this Mother of the Bride, so we will do the rest of the work for free… So Time is just time in this case… Time you now spend thinking about buttons and how sometimes having little boring things to do, mundane and simple chores with some anecdotal link back to the snot of Prussian soldiers, is not so bad.   

Be Well, my dearies, and do Good Work!

Yours aye,

Nancy