I remember playing dress-up as a young girl. We didn't have much but there were certainly plenty of old dresses, long-abandoned by grown-ups, old high-heels with straps and buckles, floppy hats, long strands of beaded necklaces, and feather boas that we could wear. The photographs that I have, and they are few, show us as children playing with some idea of what being a grown-up was all about (dead wrong of course.) Our stick-like legs wobbled on gold-colored dance shoes as we stood looking as seductively as is possible for a nine-year-old, at my grandfather's old Brownie camera.
I haven't changed much. I look pretty much the same (same freckles, same gingery hair, same doe-like legs) and I'm still playing dress-up, only this time the characters have changed. I am drawn to my husband's clothes just as much as I was when we were simply lovers and who knew what was to happen. Even then, I wanted what was his, a piece of him (in those days, his blue-ink fountain pen. I would steal it and wear it hooked on a chain beneath my silk blouse, dangling close to my breast where at first it was cold, then warm). He always knew that it was I who had taken it, but proving so was another task entirely.
How to prove that I was the culprit and yet keep that distance at the same time? You have to know, we were co-workers. There was an attraction there and a strong one, but there was also a great deal of denial. The attraction was inconvenient at best (both of us otherwise involved), complicated (the age difference just barely on the line of what would work and what might not). More, there was the fact that truly, I told myself nightly, I hated him. Yes it was true I stole his pen to be close to him, but deep down I assured myself that I couldn't stand his arrogance, the way he had to strut his brain, the way he knew so well his own worth and the way he could likely tell that I never measured up my own worth to be very much - not at that time. Not when I was that young and coltish. I was, instead, skittish, shaky, as if not yet ready for any kind of grown-up relationship. Boys were one thing, but this was a man and that was something else entirely and truth be told, it frightened me.
Article comments
1 - A. L.
Thanks for listening? Oh my God, thanks for talking!
A.L.
2 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
Hi A.L.- I'm always so grateful that people take the time to read, that i almost always end that way because really, i know people are pressed for time and this is hardly earth-shattering stuff. It's personal stuff and material i think that perhaps others can relate to in some way - at least i hope that or that it inspires ... but wow, i'm honored by your comment but still i say, thanks for listening... It's comments like that that keep me writing and not losing hope... :)
rock on.
sade
3 - A. L.
Sade,
It was really my pleasure. To have articulated your feelings about this, is, well, in a way, it is earth shattering. Your husband is very fortunate, and you, it seems, have a gift. Don't stop writing.
A. L.
4 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
HI A.L. Pray he knows how fortunate he is, though i think he does and the feeling is quite mutual, so we're lucky and if he every did not, then he'd soon find himself alone and bored and boring and etc etc while i would just move on becuase what else can you do?
I'll never stop writing. It's funny: people either love you or hate you. There's so little inbetween, but you take the good with the bad. I suppose any press is good press, or so we said in the industry. Thank god, there is much more good than bad, and i'll stick wiht that. One site i was writing for was so bitchy and had one person who felt so threatened that she would launch these all out personal attacks. Friends reassured me that this only proved that i was talented. To me it only proved that there are some real shits in the world (pardon language). I'm not sure who was right but i stay away from there because it's not worth the headache to me, which is sad, really, but hey. Besides which, i've always been loyal to BC and feel at home here... i think that's why i can write such personal pieces and not worry. People are sorta used to it and prob. say, "oh, that's just Sadi..." (laughs) I dunno... i'm just glad to have a home for such pieces. We need a dropdown section of Culture that says "memoir" or "personal experience" or something like that. Right now, there's no real category for this type of piece, alas, except Society --- hmmmm
i've gone on too long, durr! thanks again for all that you say... i'm truly grateful.
Now must write!
s.
5 - Trinket
This is just precious, as usual Sadi!
6 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
Hi Trinket (great name btw), and thank you - i'm glad you liked it... :)
7 - S L Cunningham
Really enjoyed reading this. Particularly love the sensuous imagery associated with the shirt.
8 - sadi ranson-polizzotti
Hi, S.L:
I'm really glad you enjoyed this and the imagery involved. I felt the piece could be imagined but a real physical image helps as well...
thanks for reading.
s.