Costumes

I heard about a woman who decided, on a whim, to host a New Year’s Eve party. On the invitation in the space beside “attire” she wrote: “Wear the one thing in your closet that you never get to wear because you have no reason to.” 

People showed up in things like a yellow fur hat, a prom tux from the 80s, a wetsuit, a kilt.  She said it was the best party she had ever been to—not because she threw it, but because the people in attendance left their familiar fabrication back at home.  

Her off-the-cuff invitation had given people permission to not have to try to fit in. 

The party received rave reviews. Almost to a person, the feedback was the same. “I have never felt more like myself.”  

Really? In a wetsuit at a dinner party, you felt most like you? 

This made me laugh and made me think in disproportionately proportional ways.

Clearly, if the neoprene wearer spent his days buttoned-up at Morgan Stanley, the air in the room would shift when he squeaked in. And a too-tight baby-blue prom suit in any environment creates a flux. Costume parties rarely disappoint. But this wasn’t a costume bash. These party-goers didn’t set out to make a scene. Their outfits weren’t personas they borrowed from someone else or rented or hand-sewed for the occasion. They were pieces of themselves that for whatever reason routinely stayed under wraps. 

Their get-ups were the tip of the funnel. They got individuals in the door. 

What a PARTY!  Those are the ones we’d all like to go to. Places where people aren’t afraid to simply be who they are.

I have a friend who always dresses head-to-toe in Johnny Cash black. I’m sure he likes the way he looks in the color (they do say black is slimming, which could explain why half my closet is one dark blob) and it would logically simplify his morning routine. But he says he does it so that people will find him neutral. He doesn’t want to appear to have “chosen sides.” That seems to me to be beginning with the end in mind—a solid Stephen Covey leadership tactic, but an easy way to forget who you are at your core.

Conversely, I have another friend who has as many eyeglasses as golfers have polo shirts and basketball players have shoes. I think she starts with the peepers that tickle her fancy and then gets dressed from there. She steps out of her house and into the world exactly who she is. She walks in her own way. But I also bet she has in a drawer that she rarely opens, a velour sweatsuit or a beanie or a pair of carpenter overalls.

We’re none of us—ever—just one thing.

My five-year-old granddaughter loves to play dress-up.  Randomly, she emerges as Elsa from her bedroom in a sparkling frosty blue gown capped off with satin gloves. Minutes later, she’s Ghost Spidey.  Then Rapunzel. Then a kind vet. Then a rowdy cowgirl. Then a multi-colored fairy with strapped-on light-up wings.

In the span of a Saturday morning, Austyn lives a thousand lives. 

This thought train led me, curious, to my closet door. I found in my quick gander a broken- down pink straw cowboy hat I sported for Coach Kay Yow, the pinstripe suit I wore once on the sideline at our first Final Four, a strappy sundress that might look good on Nicole Kidman (though absolutely no one else), a silk floor length kimono, a pair of hiking boots. In the corner shelf are some tattered jeans I use in lieu of scales.

What lives inside is who I was, who I am, and who I’d like to be. Habits waiting for the all-clear to make the light of day.

P.S.  True Colors