What Was I Thinking?

Today I got out my bag of summer clothing and started to "change over" from winter to summer. I found a top that I had worn a lot last year, and had felt particularly good in. I eagerly tried it on, and didn't feel good in it at all. What was I thinking last summer? Or has my body changed? Why do certain clothes make us feel fabulous at certain times, and not others? Do you have a "what was I thinking" moment?

Up in Smoke

Since coming back into my life, Ruthie has spent hours at the Costume Shop picking out costumes for "Anything Goes," the show she is directing at Morris Catholic. Last Thursday, she was supposed to come in to pick up some of the costumes, but didn't. It turned out that the night before, her house burned down. Literally to the ground. The Morristown fire-fighters could not put out the blaze. She lost everything. Every single external symbol of her life was gone, up in smoke.

On Friday, my daughter and I came to New Orleans to look at Tulane University. While here, we took a tour of the neighborhoods most damaged by Hurricane Katrina. We saw house after house, gutted, destroyed, ruined, by flood, debris, and fire. Vacant, desolate and depressing, the shells of the houses stand as silent memorials to lives forever altered by a cruel act of nature.

In the end, all we have is who we are.

Connecting Through Clothes

One of the first people I met when I became involved in Gas Lamp in 1999 was Ruthie Merrigan, a petite, pretty blond with a plus-size personality. Ruthie was the "Rose Seller" in Oliver, and I was the "Strawberry Seller." I came to know Ruthie as a woman who invested 110% conviction in everything she did. When she came on stage to sell those roses, she had the intensity of Tom Cruise cracking open a safe in Mission Impossible. Although not the strongest singer in the group, she was mesmerizing in her absorption in her part.

I lost touch with Ruthie when her family moved to Morristown many years ago. I often wondered what she was up to, and whether she was still involved with theater. Well, just last week, she re-appeared in my life in the Costume Shop. She is teaching theater at Morris Catholic and is directing "Anything Goes." She has spent several hours at the shop, pulling costumes with the same commitment to detail as she showed in her performances. How nice to see her again, and what a wonderful place the Costume Shop is to provide this connecting thread.

Other People's Clothing

Most of the clothing in the costume shop is "real." It was not created as a costume, but was once part of someone's wardrobe. As a school wheels out a rack of clothes for a show, I can just imagine the spirits of the original owners chuckling, "look -- there is my dress. Ooh, I remember when I wore that." And then, somewhere beyond what we see, there is a sharing of stories triggered by the clothing, and happiness that on earth, a part of them lives on.

The Day JFK Was Shot

My memory of the day John F. Kennedy was shot is inextricably tied to what my mother was wearing at the time. When I look back on that day, I see my mother wearing her bulky black hooded cardigan, bundled up to take us to the park. I see her face, frozen in disbelief, then crumpling in sadness as our neighbor runs up the block, screaming, “the President’s been shot.” My mother never wore that sweater again, but never parted with it either. That sweater came to be for me a symbol of not only my mother’s grief, but also the grief that blanketed the country, as well as the sadness and confusion of my six-year-old self as the grown-ups around me mourned a loss of innocence and hope. - Jessica Sporn

Pink Slippers

The Thinker

My wife's new pink slippers
have gay pompons.
There is not a spot or a stain
on their satin toes or their sides.
All night they lie together
under her bed's edge.
Shivering I catch sight of them
and smile, in the morning.
Later I watch them
descending the stair,
hurrying through the doors
and round the table,
moving stiffly
with a shake of their gay pompons!
And I talk to them
in my secret mind
out of pure happiness.

William Carlos Williams