Someone I know only a little came over for Christmas dinner before we left - she's a sweet, kind woman and I enjoyed getting to know her a little better. I showed her some of the things I've been weaving and she said, "Oh, you have such a wonderful sense of color!" Oh, my - I almost said, "No, you must have me confused with Nmother, WWW, the Flying Monkeys, or MW" but I didn't. I said, "Thank you." I've thought for most of my life that I don't have a good sense of color and experimenting with color in my weaving has been a little stressful - I'm enjoying the results, but getting started with more daring colors has been slow. Nmother chose a lot of beige until later in her life. MW also dresses in a lot of neutral colors. Beige, in NFOO, seems to be a sign of sophistication. When I was young, I wanted COLOR! I loved things that were (in Nmother's words) loud and garish. But pretty!!!! By the time I'd graduated high school, I was convinced that I had absolutely no taste, no sense of fashion, and certainly no color sense. So I've spent most of my adult life not wearing "loud and garish" colors, colors I love. Now I'm living in S. America and the indigenous women here get away with color murder!!! They dress sooooooooo beautifully, not minding which colors they put together as long as they're bright, gorgeous colors - and it works for them!!! I think I can make it work for me. I want to have beautiful, bright, luscious colors for my clothes - I've ordered some fabric online and I'm going to have some dresses made when I'm down another size - I've chosen a beautiful soft yellow silk and a tangerine color linen - can't wait to have them made! This is another piece that I'm reclaiming - I love color!!!
Hi Toto,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're claiming your love of bright colors as part of who you are. Isn't it crazy how something this silly can have so much meaning, hold so much education about who we are and where we came from. It breaks my heart that it wasn't just okay for you as a girl to love the colors you loved, that even this was a source of judgment and disapproval. What these people do to us.
I applaud your love of color and hope you embrace and enjoy every orange, pink, yellow, turquoise, magenta, and all combinations thereof that come into your life. :)
Oh, and best of everything on your Christmas journey. Hope all goes well and look forward to the updates.
Love,
Kitty
Thanks!!! I'd found this wonderful fabric store online, only to find out that it's about 30 minutes from my daughter's house! I picked up my tangerine linen and soft yellow silk that I'm having made into dresses this spring. I think I need some teal, too! I've been overweight a lot of my life and I think part of Nmother's concern was that color would make me look bigger - so I've dressed in dark colors and hidden myself from the world - no more! no more!!!
DeleteGood for you! You go!!! :)
DeleteLatin American women do dress beautifully. And color plays such a huge role in African dress, south american and Indian (Asian) fashion. Only in America do people think wearing so much black is chic. I used to wear almost everything black. Now I rarely do. But really being brave with color, that's something to learn. with your weaving, you have carte blanche (carte color). I always admire women who know how to dress with color that really suits them.
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the way women dress in Ecuador - the color, the heels, the shawls, the flair! I'm letting go, slowly, of the "rules" that I learned growing up - it's finally time to be who I am in the world - complete with garish, loud, and beautiful color!!!
DeleteHi Toto,
ReplyDeleteOff topic, but I went to the movies this weekend and saw a preview for Oz: The Great and Powerful, and I thought of you! Just wanted to say "hi."
Kitty :)
Heehee - don't you just love an analogy that's taken just about as far as it can go??? I really wonder what kind of childhood Frank Baum had...
DeleteWhen I was a kid, I read to escape. The Oz books were some of my favorites. My partner Jim (also a huge reader) had no idea there was more than one. I'm tempted to buy them for him, but probably more as an excuse to re-read them myself.
DeleteI bet Frank Baum was doing some escaping himself. It's an interesting thought, isn't it?
And yes, I love your Oz analogy. BTW, I've seen the flying monkey reference on other ACoN blogs. Does that come from you? What's the story behind it? Just curious.
"By the time I'd graduated high school, I was convinced that I had absolutely no taste, no sense of fashion, and certainly no color sense."
ReplyDeleteWow -- this really grabbed me, because I had the very same experience! And I am /just beginning/ to work on overcoming this. I have been gradually working on wearing bright colors over the past few years, but with the rest of it, especially when it comes to decorating and fashion and anything else that my mother was expert at (including writing), I am still struggling to overcome lifelong feelings of inadequacy and ineptness.
Thanks as always for sharing your experience! Bringing all this out into the open and naming it for what it is, is a help to all of us who have a FOO with significant dysfunctions, N or otherwise.