One of my students writes a fashion blog -- sort of an anti-fashion blog, actually. One of her posts, in which she thought back to her personal style in high school, jarred loose a memory of a photo of me with some friends that was taken in a corridor of our high school. We look like what we were -- the "out" group.
No jocks or cheerleaders in our group, just a former seminarian, a student newspaper editor and assorted awkward young things in skirts that stopped below our knees, cardigans and blouses with Peter Pan collars.
Ours was, if you haven't already guessed, a parochial high school with a strict dress code. We girls were not allowed to wear pullover sweaters lest our flat chests excite the boys. Looking at that photograph, I doubt we could excite anyone with a pulse.
Within a year we would be off to college, set free to explore other ways to express ourselves. Still, I was a sophomore in college before I took the leap and bought my first pair of bell-bottoms. I shudder to think how geek-ily I dressed as a freshman. Old habits die hard.
These days I might be caught in a skirt once or twice a year. The rest of the time I dress to please myself, which is to say I dress to feel comfortable, to feel like me.
Getting older has its perks.
Monday, April 13, 2015
Friday, April 3, 2015
Good Friday, 1958
I can't say with absolute certainty that 1958 was the year I first "got" the significance of Good Friday, but by then I'd made my first confession and my First Communion. So I had, no doubt, been well-versed in the events of Holy Week.
Mom had been a Catholic all her life. Dad was a protestant, but he drove us to church every Sunday morning and made sure we all went to Catholic schools (he converted when I was 9). So Mom decided how we would spend Good Friday, and inevitably that led to St. Mary's Church.
We'd arrive well ahead of the start of the Good Friday service so we could sit, in silence, while Mom said the rosary. I suppose we squirmed a good bit, too, but all it took was a look from Mom to tell us our souls would be in danger of eternal damnation if we didn't settle down.
On those rare occasions when we didn't accompany Mom to church on Good Friday, we were told to keep silent between noon and 3 p.m., the time during which Christ hung on the cross. We couldn't eat anything then, either. In fact, we weren't supposed to eat much at all that day. We couldn't wait until 3:01.
I'll be going to church this afternoon. I'll even be singing with the choir as we mark another Good Friday. I might even try to keep silent for awhile before I go, and if I eat anything for lunch it'll probably be no more than a carton of yogurt.
I'm no saint. I'm just the daughter of a woman of faith.
Mom had been a Catholic all her life. Dad was a protestant, but he drove us to church every Sunday morning and made sure we all went to Catholic schools (he converted when I was 9). So Mom decided how we would spend Good Friday, and inevitably that led to St. Mary's Church.
We'd arrive well ahead of the start of the Good Friday service so we could sit, in silence, while Mom said the rosary. I suppose we squirmed a good bit, too, but all it took was a look from Mom to tell us our souls would be in danger of eternal damnation if we didn't settle down.
On those rare occasions when we didn't accompany Mom to church on Good Friday, we were told to keep silent between noon and 3 p.m., the time during which Christ hung on the cross. We couldn't eat anything then, either. In fact, we weren't supposed to eat much at all that day. We couldn't wait until 3:01.
I'll be going to church this afternoon. I'll even be singing with the choir as we mark another Good Friday. I might even try to keep silent for awhile before I go, and if I eat anything for lunch it'll probably be no more than a carton of yogurt.
I'm no saint. I'm just the daughter of a woman of faith.
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