Unafraid
“Be the
weirdo who dares to enjoy.”
Elizabeth
Gilbert (Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear)
A friend is visiting me
who lives on a farm in the mid-west. She's got farming in her blood,
having grown up in a cattle-raising family on that seemingly endless
prairie. She makes her own clothes, and almost all of them feature
some sort of fruit or vegetable—writ large, and loud. She showed me
her latest hand-made creation; a skirt made from fabric printed with
brilliantly colored macaroons, with red pompom trim around the hem.
Sometimes her shirts have a life-sized cat picture on them, and
sometimes they feature farm animals. As you might imagine, they are
absolutely unique—one of a kind. She gets a lot of flack for
dressing in such an unusual and blatant style, but she is not
deterred. Giant squash is just too beautiful not to wear. She's a
weirdo who dares to enjoy.
Most of us are conscious
of what's in style and closely follow trends. It's strange to me how
uniform we are with clothing and decorations. There was a time in
Birmingham when absolutely every house had a pot of red geraniums on
the front porch—not orange, not pink, and certainly not petunias.
It was like God had sent out a memo threatening sudden death to
anyone who didn't put a red geranium on their porch. Right now,
gigantic SUV's and Crossovers are the “in” vehicles. “Screw the
environment,” they seem to say, “if the Jones' drive a humongous
Lexus bus, then so will I!” I always chafe when I park my little
hybrid in a parking lot and can't see a single thing when I try to
back out because there's a behemoth on either side. I know, I'm being
judgmental—but the carpool line at the nearby middle school reminds
me of the old-time pachyderm parade when the circus came to town—each
elephant holding onto the tail of the one in front of them. Okay,
I'll stop. I've had my little rant. Forgive me.
It's rare to find people
courageous enough to simply be themselves, to dress in what's
comfortable to them and forget what's “trending.” We're afraid of
being judged as weird, as though that's a fatal flaw. When weird
means individual, unique, authentic, bold, creative, and unafraid,
what's wrong with that? The thing is, we have to detach from the
collective-mental-machine long enough to find out what we like best,
what suits us. We have to stop letting some Hollywood designer
dictate what we must wear this Spring. It takes a little bit of work
and a little bit of risk-taking to be who you are. But, you're worth
it. You were made to be yourself—not someone who follows like a
sheep, driven by a snappy designer-dog. Here are the wise words of
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic):
“The
universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands
back to see if we can find them.”
Go out there wearing your
version of a macaroon skirt today, and be proud of who you are.
In the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment