Oh How She’ll Fall

I took a couple of days off this week to get things done around the house. One of those things was to be laundry but it didn’t get done in time. With no clean laundry read: running around, homey like clothes not dry cleaned or special clothing. I did the unthinkable, something I had been mulling around in my mind for a long time. I did the one thing I VOWED I would never do. It couldn’t be helped. I  had to, it was necessary. It all started because someone was hungry and I had to leave my house and go grab dinner but with no clean laundry what was I going to do?

I needed something quick easy and comfortable. It’s about 120 degrees in California so pants are out of the question.  It was almost as if peer pressure had taken over and I finally broke. THE ONE THING I TOLD MY SELF NO MATTER HOW HARD LIFE GETS NO MATTER WHAT EVERYONE ELSE WAS DOING. JUST.DON’T. DO.IT.  I couldn’t help it. I could hear the voices of friends as far back as Jr High telling me “It doesn’t matter”, “who cares”, and other things youth say to one another to be cool.

Matt and I were starving. I tried to get ready to find quick and easy and still pulled together. Because I run into my clients on the street and I feel I need to look a certain way in order to gain the trust and respect of clients. I don’t have an off fashion day. But I did. I was having a moment. A MAJOR MOMENT!  I was torn in two, each half shouting their side of the case

“Do it” one side said.

“It’s ok, no one will know but you”.

“Who cares we live in a different time. No one follows those rules anymore.”

And the other side my inner self said,

“ Its tradition, in this fallen world you must  keep up that traditional value.” The other side pleaded.

“ Don’t follow the fleeting fads of fashions. The old fashion rules will risen again.”

I had to leave, Matt was growing hungrier by the second.  So I did it. I did the unthinkable. I open that bottom drawer where I kept my clean little stash and there they were freshly laundered and waiting. Looking forlorn from lack of use. The pull was magnetic, the sun was still shining and little beads of sweat  began to form on my upper lip and brow. I could hear the birds encouraging me to take them out of the dark drawer and bring them into the light one last time. I thought to myself once wouldn’t hurt. It will be ok and nobody has to know a thing about anything. You'll be back home in 20 minutes and none will be the wiser. Except I couldn’t keep it a secret I felt like a sham and a fraud. A heretic for all my years of preaching the gospel against what I was doing. I knew better. I wasn’t a recent convert due to trend, I was raised deep in this value and here I was about to blow it all because I didn’t do my laundry. At home maybe I could get away with it, and I mean maybe, but never in public. There are things that you keep private and separate like your period panties.

No matter what your beliefs are its hard to change the way you have been hard wired. A major turning point was about to happen, from this moment I will be ever changed. I will either be swayed to believe that this was how life should be and that it is ok or I might have some sort of physical allergic reaction where my skin begins to recede into itself because of what I had done.  With the decision made I grabbed them, I imagined some sort of sword/stone like incident would follow. It didn’t. They came to me freely as if they had missed me it had only been like a week. In truth it was I who had missed them. I slipped them on and felt refreshed as the cool clean white cotton shorts brushed against my freshly shaven thighs. I know you are puking at that last bit but seriously you have no idea how sinful I felt and how luxurious it felt. It was like tasting forbidden fruit, skinny dipping, chocolate in bed without brushing your teeth, you get the picture. Getting let off the hook for a crime that doesn’t exist. It was all in my head or was it.

Now dressed we headed to the car. I rushed into the passenger seat. I couldn’t believe that I was out (at this point in the driveway and that’s out enough) in WHITE after Labor Day. Not just, white but white shorts of all bottoms to wear. But they were the only clean, cool and comfy thing I had to throw on at the moment. My panic eased into a feeling of its just clothes or was it something more? I felt free and uneasy, a contradiction maybe, but that’s just how I felt. I didn’t get out of the car during the trip. not for any reason other than I didn’t need to. But the uneasy was keeping my butt glued to the seat while the free put her feet up on the dash and let the last bit of the days sun kiss her thighs.  

We got home I took the shorts off immediately. There was something about that moment with the sun setting  and all the the images that September produces, caramel apples, pumpkin spice flavored stuff, cinnamon, tweed, roaring fires and fuzzy blankets. Those were all the things I was looking forward to this month and white shorts didn’t go with those images. So crisp and pure and fresh. There was nothing warm and cozy about them. Nothing that made me want to curl up with a good book and my pups. And I thought for a moment and realized white totally doesn’t go with autumn. White is much too bright for falls natural warm pallet of golden leaves and spicy air. A cream sweater cashmere sweater yes but my white shorts are put away until Easter. And I'm ok with that.