The Charm of the Unfamiliar

I was recently on a thrifting adventure and found myself at the local Goodwill store.  And since it was cold outside, I was vaguely shopping for something warm.  (A quick aside here—it is surely a known law of thrifting that you can’t actually go in search of a specific item when thrift shopping; you must merely scan the day’s offerings and be open to a serendipitous discovery.)  Anyway, I happened upon a pair of leggings that were black and covered in a polka dot pattern of gray skulls.  Since I am around young people daily, I am aware of the fashion industry’s recent trend toward “death fashion.”  And as I am not totally out of touch with my own generation, I had a moment of self-questioning, about whether it would be appropriate to wear the skull pants.  And then I bought them.  And, yes, I do wear them.  They are warm.  And they do have a dot pattern, of sorts.  And I don’t generally base my decisions, fashion or otherwise, on what is or isn’t appropriate.

So I started thinking about why the fashion industry would choose to decorate clothing with skulls.  I discovered that some people take the skull motif very seriously.  One blog I came across said in very plain language that any article of clothing that sports death imagery is straight from the devil and is cursed.  I was not sure if this meant I was going to hell or if my ass was going to grow astronomically, you know, because of its proximity to such evil.  Either way, the situation contains just enough ambiguity to allow me to continue to wear the leggings. 

One of the articles I read claimed that our culture’s attraction to the skull bones, as opposed to other human bones, is based partially on the idea of neoteny, or juvenilization, the notion that the large eye sockets give it a kind of puppy-like visual appeal.  In other words, on some level, we somehow find skulls to be cute!  Ironically, this idea of cuteness was almost enough to make me stop wearing the pants.  Anyone who knows me well at all knows I can’t stand to be called cute and have always dreamt of being thought of as… well, I admit it, exotic.  Of course, I made the mistake of sharing this with my friend Lisa a few years ago.  She taught in the room next to me at the time and seemed to delight in trying to brighten up my day with small surprises.  She thought it would be fun to have one of our mutual students comment on my appearance one day and tell me how absolutely exotic I looked.  Unfortunately, the young man she chose to recruit for this task was either somewhat hard of hearing or possessed a limited vocabulary, because later that day, he saw me walking down the crowded hall during the passing period between classes and yelled at the top of his lungs, “Mrs. Hicks!  You look so… erotic today!”  Oh well, at least he didn’t call me cute…

It’s funny, really, how caught up in ourselves we can be with regard to self-image and the ways other perceive us.  When I was on vacation last week, a cocktail waitress gave me a hearty compliment on my patchouli scent.  A few days later, however, a woman walked into the library where I was searching for the perfect beach novel, flopped down in a chair, and said dramatically, and quite loudly, to her nearby friend, “Oh, someone is wearing that nasty ass patchouli!  I hate that smell!”  And, okay, if I were quicker on the uptake, I could have pointed out to her that patchouli has been used for centuries as an insect repellent.  You know, subtly implying that she was being a pest of sorts…  But I am neither quick nor the type to say such a thing to a stranger.  Instead, I spent the remainder of the morning pondering my reaction to both the compliment and the perceived insult.  Why was it okay to revel in the warmth of one and not to become prickly in the wake of the other?  And what is it about some scents, such as patchouli, that is so polarizing, appealing to some people and repulsing others?

This member of the mint family has long been simultaneously prized and despised.  Evidently it was once used to let buyers of India ink know that their purchase genuinely came from India.  It has been used to treat ailments ranging from bad breath to snake bites, and is usually described as sweet, woodsy, pungent, rich, herbaceous, and yes, exotic.  It is also considered to be an aphrodisiac and known to get better with age, with its scent becoming deeper and fuller over time, its harshness mellowing with age.  On a darker note, patchouli is associated with death and is commonly nicknamed “graveyard dirt."  So what does it really say about my personality that I go about sporting my skull patterned pants while smelling of sex and cemeteries?  Maybe my own personal curse is my inability to reconcile all of the various aspects of my self, ranging from childlike, to seductive, to downright dark.  And maybe I just think too much and need to take a break, maybe do a little thrift shopping… and perhaps it is appropriate to end with a poem about the strange places a mind can drift.

TOO FAR GONE BY TUESDAY

colors can push over the 

edge, but I really like the sketchiness

of pencil sound, the way the round

undefined housing shelters me 

from the lead

I prefer the promise

of erasability, so ironically decisive

yet I cross things out

out of habit

even this writing

is not without some danger

the friction can become tiresome,

can become needy,

can become devisive,

and I might get caught up

in the reflection

of that shiny metal piece

that ties eraser to wood,

that little connector

so needless intricate 

and cold.