THE SIDE DOOR
When entering through the front is too hard
Years ago I gave an assignment to write 2 pages in which you were inappropriately dressed for the occasion. Up to you the occasion, and how you were dressed. I told the class a brief story about keeping my dress on at an orgy in an East Village apartment. It was the late sixties, the bed was overflowing with what looked like some kind of sea creature, its many parts moving gently in ocean waters, nothing particularly sexy, just good natured and rather friendly. Take your clothes off, urged my friend Morley, who was already naked. But I looked good in my new dress. So I kept it on.
The next day class returned. There was one woman who had done the assignment. I have never forgotten it. I can’t reproduce her writing but this was the story.
Twenty years ago her husband had been helping a man load a pickup truck. He didn’t even know the man, she said, but he was generous with his help when help seemed needed, he was that kind of person. At some point the truck moved unexpectedly, and her husband had been thrown hard to the ground. An ambulance rushed him to the hospital but it wasn’t long, she said, before he was declared brain dead. The next thing she remembered walking on the hospital roof, because it was she who had to choose whether or not to take him off life support. Walking back and forth, she kept thinking she was wearing the wrong clothes for such a terrible decision. Almost disrespectful. Shorts, a t-shirt, and flipflops. Her husband died. She had never been able to write about it before. But she found a side door.
Write 2pp about being inappropriately dressed for the occasion
Beautiful, Abby. I've done this one, thanks to owning Two Pages and Writing about Memoir. Mine was choosing to wear denim overalls and bright orange Converse sneakers at 16 to go to family for Thanksgiving. My mother freaked out, screaming that I had to change, and then my father freaked out, and took one of my mother's antique blue glass candleholders, and smashed it to shards on her beautiful walnut dining room table, leaving a gash that still remains. He was over her harassing me for being myself. I'd never, ever seen him do anything vaguely violent in my life. The little kid inside of me was cheering him on. And truly, the only one who thought I was inappropriately dressed for the occasion was my mom. I went to Thanksgiving dressed in my favorite clothing. When we got to my cousin's house, the only one who was inappropriately dressed was my mother, father, and brother. Everyone else was wearing jeans. Huzzah! xo
My brother-in-law was getting married in a small town and we were staying in a motel near the wedding venue. My four year old daughter was a flower girl. She loved to swim and begged to have one last swim at the motel pool before putting on her fancy dress and going to the wedding. I was already dressed and ready to go, but wanted to indulge her so we went to the pool. She slipped into the deep end and started to drown. The lifeguard didn't notice, but I certainly did and jumped in to save her. She was fine, although I was shaken to the core. But with only about 10 minutes to find something else for me to wear to the wedding, I found an odd little store in the town that had one dress that fit me. It was white. I wore white to my brother-in-law's wedding, but all I could think of was my precious daughter going under and flailing and going under again.