When I Wear Purple

 So Cindy gave us a prompt to write about what we would do when we were "mature" -- based on the famous Jenny Joseph poem, "Warning" that begins, 

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

I got so many kind words for this piece.  Cindy said she would have known that I wrote it even if I hadn't put my name on it.  Another student said that I was the most honest writer she'd ever heard.

 

Kake Wearing Purple

 

I have always worn purple with a red hat, even when I didn’t know it.

 

When I was in eighth grade, I was standing at my locker between classes when another girl said to me, “So you’re Kakie Hanson.  I’ve heard of you.”  I didn’t have the presence of mind to ask, “What have you heard” because I was so shocked anyone knew me at all.  But the way I dressed and acted made me visible to others.  I dressed in clothes my mom made, rarely fashionable.  I acted like “myself.”  My mom always told me, “Be yourself” and I have been because, frankly, there was no other person to be. 

Over time, I’ve learned how to justify, explain, or apologize for my differences from others, sometimes when I couldn’t figure out just what it was others were concerned or complaining about.  I would just apologize.  

 

When I taught college, I began by wearing suits, as any good public speaking teacher would.  But in Central Oregon in 1988, that made me look highly suspicious.  It took a few years to figure out that wearing jeans and a blazer or sweater would make me look more normal (and get me higher teacher evaluations). And I always like to do some color matching in my clothes, which also made me stand out.

 

Here are some remembered reflections on my attire.  When I was teaching, after I wore a striped costume on Halloween, a student complained that I walked around looking like a bee and that I shouldn’t be allowed to teach because I was clearly nuts. A friend once gave me a painting of a peacock saying it reminded her of me. The vice president of instruction once asked me why I dressed to call attention to myself.

 

So pretty much all my life I’ve been annoying someone with both my clothing and my way of being in the world.

 

My favorite story is about New Years, 1980 when I found out that my hip and cool queer best friend had some of the same values as my body fearing Catholic Mom.  Mom had found an old 50s dress for me to wear to my friend Lee’s party in San Francisco.  It was sheer black net with horizontal stripes of black velvet ribbon. It fit skin tight on top and the skirt flared out.  It was intended to be worn with something under the top but it fit pretty skin tight on me.  I didn’t want to wear a dress with a bra showing. So I decided, as the current trend was toward showing body parts, that I would wear it with just a half-slip under and nothing else.  The stripes across the chest were not strategically placed.   When I showed the outfit it to my Mom and my husband, he was okay with it, having seen me in the past in similarly provocative outfits.   But Mom said, “Wouldn’t you like some band-aids with that?” We all laughed and I said, “No.”  I knew women in San Francisco and New York were not afraid of showing nipples so why should I be?

 

And then, when we got up to the tres gay household of my friend in The City and I put on the dress for the party, what did he say?  “Wouldn’t you like some band-aids with that?”

 

So then I knew that it was my older spouse, an eccentric himself, who was the real outlier, not my supposedly radical friend.

 

So when it comes to my clothing, after over a half century of being commented on, I have no fucks left to give.