I got into the dressing up box

and I may never stop plundering.

Getting dressed brings me such joy and it has since the beginning. I don’t know the origin of the feeling, but I’ve loved clothes and accessories since I was a tiny girl. While my sister would always have rather been out in the yard pretending to be wild and free when we were little, I mostly wanted to be clean and in a great outfit. Dandy, our grandfather, used to pat me on the shoulder and call me his dress up baby. I guess I should say it runs in the family — I haven’t always been aware of it, but when I think back, I can spot quite a bit of the peacock tendency in my ancestors.

My father’s aunt, Lucille Grenade, moved from Alabama to Beverly Hills in the 1960s. I don’t know the story on how she got started, but she was a collector, and she used to send huge boxes of clothes and such to our house in Frankville, Alabama by UPS. There were bits and bobbles, pieces of turquoise jewelry and strands of beads, all sorts of clothing, Navajo rugs, and once, a rug she said she thought had come from Marilyn Monroe’s house. It was white and fluffy and I think some sort of fur. Lucille even shipped us the baby grand piano on which I learned to play. The middle C needed repair, but otherwise, it got me on the path. The magical boxes did too.

Frankville is in the middle of the woods. Trick or treating, for my sister and me, consisted of our mama driving us from house to house in the car — there are no sidewalks, no stop signs, and houses are far flung from each other. It wasn’t like what we saw on tv, but nothing much was. We’d leave at dark and hit the houses on the right first — a stop by our grandparents’ house for their excellent candy (usually hershey’s kisses and other delightfully wrapped chocolates), then down to Vivian Dearmon’s which was across the road from Earl Johnson’s store, back up to Bo and Wilma Henson’s (Wilma made up individual candy bags for each child — this stop was, of course, the one I looked forward to most — I also remember that Bo kept snack size Butterfingers in his shop refrigerator all year that he’d dole out every time we stopped by their place for whatever reason), then Sam and Minnie Lou’s, then to Aunt Maggie’s and Johnnie and Ed’s. That was about it. I had little connection to the rest of the world in a global sense — I heard the word “south” so much that before I was corrected at about six years old, I thought we lived in South America. But no matter — I loved to wonder about other people’s worlds, and getting dressed up and costumes were the ultimate portal.

My parents weren’t really planners, not about things like Halloween. My sweet mama would plan our Easter outfits and such, but it seems every year (except for 2nd grade when I had the only store-bought costume I ever had) we’d go digging through Lucille’s boxes for things that hadn’t integrated into our daily lives and might make some sort of costume. I remember being a gypsy. I remember being an old man. I remember when I stopped being anything.

There are so many levels to this for me, and I’m just starting to realize how deep it all goes and how fear has shaped my identity. Somewhere on the path I started hiding in my clothes instead of allowing them to reveal me. For decades, I’ve dressed in mostly black, grey, navy, and white. It is a chic approach, but also one that is beyond reproach. It’s hard to criticize what someone’s wearing if it doesn’t even register. The grown up lady in me adheres to this dressing philosophy — it makes my life simpler and less stressful if everything goes together and I don’t have to mess with prints and colors and excess. But every now and then, I don’t want to blend in. Every now and then, I want to wear head-to-toe green, flowers all over my body, or a butterfly headdress. Being creative in all aspects of my life is how I play. And it’s high time I remembered how. It is my obligation as a human being to bring my unique gifts to fruition as much as I can, and I know that allowing myself to play allows that authenticity to emerge. My father’s words to “be an individual” ring in my head. Well, here she is.

I know I’m healing when I’m able to embrace my past rather than lament it.

I hope y’all are having a great week.

Peace. Love.

Allison

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