Ms. Sam Wears Dresses

   

One of my favorite Easter dresses. The fabric was a gift from my great grandmother, and was sewn by my moma. Isn't the cape wonderful?

    Several years ago I was at church, teaching for Vacation Bible School. I don't remember what I was about to do, but one of the people in the group questioned my ability do it in a dress.
    "Ms. Sam always wears dresses," one of the little guys answered for me, obviously indignant.
    His defense of me made me smile, but he was certainly not the first kid, or adult, to comment on my preferred garment.
    I have mentioned before that I am a tomboy. I loved everything from frogs to snakes growing up, plus getting as dirty and scratched up as possible. And yes, I could do it all in a dress.

Riding the pony my Grandpa RV gave me in a yellow sundress dotted with red flowers and sporting red ladybug buttons for good measure.

    When I was small my moma would make me adorable sundresses. They were basically a front and back with straps, nothing fancy. But they were so lovely that I can recall many of them by their bright fabrics and the addition of novelty buttons shaped like apples or flowers. At that age there was nothing I could not or would not do in a dress. And someone singing, "I see London, I see France, I see Sam's underpants..." was liable to get a fist in the nose for their troubles.

Flying off the bus on my first day of Kindergarten. My dress had navy blue flowers with matching blue rickrack around the straps and pockets, and blue heart buttons. Divine!

    I remember my group of buddies from fourth grade really well. Half a dozen boys and two girls. One day we were going out to recess and one of my guy friends suddenly stopped and looked at me. "But you're wearing a dress. You don't wear dresses!"
    I'm sure about that time my jaw jutted out like an iceberg. Wasn't anybody going to tell me what I did and didn't wear. I think I wore dresses for a week straight and after that no one ever questioned what I wore again. Even when we got to high school and I would dress as a gypsy one day, then an equestrian in a split riding skirt, followed by a prim Victorian the day after. They had given up trying to figure it out and just took it in stride.

Just a normal high school day...dressed as a gypsy.

    Funny thing is, I'm very insecure. I don't want anyone to dislike me. When I was a teen my self-esteem was so bad that on the rare occasions that my family went out to eat, I couldn't. By the time we had walked in and gotten to the point of ordering I was certain that every soul in the establishment had pronounced me homely and not overly smart. Just by glancing at me. I still have remnants of this clinging to me. Some days a lone walk through the grocery store can make my stomach clench and my skin break into a nervous sweat.
    No, it's not anything you're thinking. I knew every day of my life that my parents adored me, my friends loved me, my teachers appreciated me. It was a lack within myself that created the problem. I felt that everyone was so good and so kind to me and I was unworthy of all of it. Like a dark blot that did not deserve existence. But even in this dark time of not wanting to be looked at, I stood out in the way I dressed. I couldn't help it. I am a giant ball of contradictions.

Family vacation to Natchez,  Mississippi. The humidity was thick enough to smother. Thank goodness for dresses and cool water to dip your feet in!

     God brought me through that time by granting me a peace that I had never thought to know. And when he gave me children he also gave me the gift of forgetting myself. When my babies arrived I was so proud, so overwhelmed at their perfection. They had been given to ME. And suddenly I knew that no matter what I looked like or how smart I was, I had been the instrument to create something greater than anything I had ever known. With them as my compass, my eyes and heart always focused on them, I could be fearless.
    And the dresses came about because of my boys as well. A tomboy doesn't just suddenly stop being one. I was the one to teach my boys about bugs, frogs, and snakes. (Snakes give my hubby the heeby-jeebies ) I taught them to cast a fishing line, to hit a baseball, and to ride a bike. And since I was learning and growing right along with them, I began to wonder how I wanted them to perceive me as a woman.
    I wanted them to know that a woman could be brave enough to catch a snake, and strong enough to throw a ball. But I also wanted them to know that a woman can be delicate and feminine at the same time. Hence, the dresses. And it turns out it wasn't just for them. I feel more womanly, more feminine in a dress. Throw an apron over the dress and I become so domestic I practically radiate the "Leave it to Beaver" theme song. (Put me in overalls and all I want to do is play in the mud.) I even found I was vastly more comfortable. Who ever decided that jeans are comfortable?! And I remembered after all those years that I could do anything in a dress that someone else could do in pants.
    Its been years now since I stopped wearing pants. It was nothing to do with religion or anything like that. I simply love dresses. The few times I have tried a pair of pants on again, I could not wait to go back to the comfort of my "normal" clothes. And there is an added bonus- people always think you look dressy, no pun intended. I can literally climb out of the the flowerbed, pull on a clean dress and flats and go to town and someone will say, "You look so nice. Are you going somewhere special?" 
    I like that thought. Just because you're in a dress you are headed somewhere special. When in reality I don't have the patience to match pants and shirt or socks and shoes. I throw a garment over my head and go out the door. Try it. What a gloriously magical happening it is that somewhere between yanking a dress over your head and being seen by another person you somehow look "special". It's like an alchemy of some sort.
    I like to make dresses as well. Preferably the kind that are one piece of fabric for the front and one for the back. Nothing fancy but the fabric and some buttons. And it is a good thing I do, because my day-dresses, or house-dresses as they used to be called, have a tough life. I am constantly stitching up a hole torn by a barbed wire fence or rose bush. And I like big pockets to hold lots of eggs from the hen house, or tomatoes from the garden. Often the pockets still have leaves and dirt in them when they go to the wash. 

Family vacation to Aransas Wildlife Refuge in Texas. I am kissing the wild hog we've seen each time since I was small. I'm also holding a dead dragonfly I found in the parking lot. Waste not, want not. This is one of my homemade sackdresses- I mean, sundresses! It's an ode to the ones my moma used to make me- rickrack, fancy buttons, and all.

    I did have one pair of pants left. They were an old pair of exercise pants that I had saved because I paint in them. Have you ever seen the "I love Lucy" episode where Fred, Ethel, Rickie and Lucy paint the apartment? They finish the job and turn to each other. There are one or two tiny spots of paint on them and they congratulate each other. Then they turn to Lucy. All you can see are her eyes. The rest of her body, including hair, is covered in paint. I am Lucy. Seriously. I've kept the pants and a tee shirt from year to year, so as not to throw away an entire set of clothing every time I paint.
     Only a few months after my middle son proposed to his sweetheart, they came driving up the road. I was trapped outside in full view, in my terrible painted pants. They got out and I tried to appear nonchalant, but his fiance kept looking at me oddly. Finally I blurted out an apology for my terrible clothing. Her face cleared and she laughed. " I couldn't figure out what was so strange," she said, "but you're in pants."
    The pants, Dear Reader, went immediately into the trash. Heaven knows what I'll do when the next painting time comes. Maybe I'll make a dress specifically for that...

This year's Easter dress was a vintage 1950's sheath dress that my moma found for me. It has the sweetest nubby little buttons that look like berries. Guess some things never change.

 Life is short. Wear the dress.