Today was a strange episode in the
Are You Attached to Your Self-Identity? game I've been playing with myself lately. It began with me finally cashing in a year-old coupon for full body abhyanga at the local Ayurvedic spa — a beautiful and relaxing experience that none the less brought up a few self-critical feelings about various physical imperfections as I lay there almost completely exposed on the table. Not as much criticism as there would have been years ago (when I was in better shape than I am now physically, but in worse shape mentally, ironically) but still a few winces. Lesson to learn: I am not this physical body and need to stop identifying with both its flaws and its qualities a bit less. One can't completely lose identification with the body and expect to remain breathing for very long, but a little detachment can go a long way.
Luckily the therapist began the session by chanting the great
Mahamrityunjaya Mantra, a request to Shiva for enlightenment, one of my favorites. She chanted it once aloud. I chanted it silently for the next hour of massage.
Afterwards I had plans to have lunch with J. He was running a bit late so I left the café we'd agreed to meet at and waited for him outside on the sidewalk instead. I was staring off across the busy street in front of me feeling like a well-oiled rubber band after my abhyanga when two women approached me, one holding a notebook the other a camera. I know I must have looked a bit annoyed with them at first, because I was. It's impossible to stand or walk peacefully down the sidewalk in this particular town without being bombarded with requests on all sides — kids collecting money for new baseball uniforms, clean water action petitions to sign, buskers, politicians, hand-outs for sales and newly opened stores, and many, many panhandlers. Just from a a practical standpoint, Main Street is only 3 blocks long, and they aren't large blocks. As wonderful as some of these opportunities for interaction and generosity are, much of the time it feels overwhelming. I don't even carry a cell phone so I can't pretend to be Terribly Busy speaking on it.
Plus I like to look at people and smile. I'm a walking target for all sorts of appeals.
Anyway, I thought for sure this was going to be a request to listen to something lengthy and beyond my capability to absorb or care about at that hunger-filled moment when instead the young woman holding the notebook announced she was interested in interviewing me for the Style Stop section of the local newspaper and would I mind answering some questions about my outfit and posing for photographs, right there on the sidewalk?
My outfit?
Let me admit two things. First, when I used to actually read the local newspaper on a regular basis I would always turn to the Style Stop photo and inevitably comment to J "someday I want to be interviewed for this!" Second, in the past few years my attention to being eclectically dressed every time I leave the house has waned. A lot. But it used to be somewhat of an obsession. Evidence:
Now
this look is Style Stop worthy. But this photo was taken years ago, and I don't do vintage-punk style much anymore. Not that there's anything wrong with it, but first of all in my opinion I'm getting a hair too old to be pulling this look off without getting pointed at, second my long, au-natural hair clashes with outfits like these (lol), and third I'm distracted by other things right now. Like stopping a million lifetime cycle of birth and death, you know,
small stuff. I do think that it's possible to be enlightened and wear fishnets at the same time, but not for me at the moment, and it is definitely NOT possible to dress like this at the school I'm heading to in a month, so thank goodness I've adopted a new look.
But today I get noticed for Style Stop.
Today? Let's just say that my main two prerogatives for today's outfit were
Is it Comfortable? and
Do I care if it Ends up Soaked in Abhyanga Oil? Because it was, and so was I. My feet were literally sliding around in my little silver shoes, my hair, which had been perfectly clean mere hours before, was now greasy with coconut oil and pulled back rather harshly in a doubled-over ponytail. 99% of my makeup, which wasn't much to begin with, had just been rubbed and oiled off of my face, my skin as of late fairly red and aggravated and more so from laying face-down on the massage table. My skirt, which I chose for its pretty, Ayurvedic-like lotus motif, was threatening to fall off, and I'd chosen very...
comfortable...underthings to put on beneath my off-white shirt. Comfortable in a not-very-flattering kind of way — which is practically a
requirement for any underthings that are comfortable, I've noticed.
I haven't seen a Style Stop in a long time, but I'm always amazed at the stories people can weave about the clothes they're wearing and the seriousness with which they can wax poetic about their personal style. And yes, that used to be me too and sometimes it still is. But today I stood there stammering while buskers and panhandlers looked on from a nearby bench, "This skirt?
(You mean the one that is entirely too big for me?) My mom gave it to me. How long ago? I don't know, three or four years?"
(Try about ten, you hate to shop).(Today it is greasy frump)."
I brightened up considerably when they asked about my jewelry. As usual I was wearing the stylized silver Om necklace and bracelet J bought me for our 15 year anniversary and my birthday last summer. As the photographer hovered in for a close up I wondered if she could see the oil slick on my neck, smell the coconut. It occurred to me as her camera clicked away that the silver chain of the necklace is still sadly discolored from the chlorinated pool at the ashram last month. Sigh.
The whole ordeal felt like I'd just had my hair pulled and my bra snapped by the Universe.
How unattached are you, really? it laughed as I stood there feeling pulled in several directions, accepting myself while criticising myself. Reminding myself that Style Stop is not exactly important, while remembering that only a couple of years ago it would have been, and in fact must still be in some way since this experience was causing me to regret how I'd dressed today — and that is some serious identification with something that is even less "me" than my physical body laid out on a massage table.
The best part of this story? As I was being interviewed and photographed there on Main Street J arrived to meet me for lunch. At first he didn't notice us and walked into the cafe. When he walked back out I was just discussing his gift of the jewelry and the paparazzi was about to move on. They turned around and their eyes landed on an interesting looking fellow leaning against the wall.
"Hey, would you mind being interviewed and photographed for Style Stop?" they asked.
I burst out laughing, causing them both to turn towards me again.
"That's my boyfriend!"
So I was indeed interviewed for Style Stop (and J too!), and what timing, just before I head out of town. And the best part is I don't care anymore.
Much.
