Read Online High Tide in Tucson by Barbara Kingsolver - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Barbara Kingsolver
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of patience, to be sure, but at least there are no motorcycles rusting in the carport.
My thanks to Doris Lessing and William Saroyan and Miss Truman Richey. And every other wise teacher who may ever save a surly soul like mine.
LIFE WITHOUT GO-GO BOOTS
Fashion nearly wrecked my life. I grew up beyond its pale, convinced that this would stunt me in some irreparable way. I donât think it has, but for a long time it was touch and go.
We lived in the country, in the middle of an alfalfa field; we had no immediate access to Bobbie Brooks sweaters. I went to school in the hand-me-downs of a cousin three years older. She had excellent fashion sense, but during the three-year lag her every sleek outfit turned to a pumpkin. In fifth grade, when girls were wearing straight shifts with buttons down the front, I wore pastel shirtwaists with cap sleeves and a multitude of built-in petticoats. My black lace-up oxfords, which my parents perceived to have orthopedic value, carried their own weight in the spectacle. I suspected people noticed, and I knew it for sure on the dayBilly Stamps announced to the lunch line: âMake way for the Bride of Frankenstein.â
I suffered quietly, casting an ever-hopeful eye on my eighth-grade cousin whose button-front shifts someday would be mine. But by the time I was an eighth grader, everyone with an iota of social position wore polka-dot shirts and miniskirts. For Christmas, I begged for go-go boots. The rest of my life would be endurable if I had a pair of those white, calf-high confections with the little black heels. My mother, though always inscrutable near Christmas, seemed sympathetic; there was hope. Never mind that those little black heels are like skate blades in inclement weather. I would walk on air.
On Christmas morning I received white rubber boots with treads like a pair of Michelins. My mother loved me, but had missed the point.
In high school I took matters into my own hands. I learned to sew. I contrived to make an apple-green polyester jumpsuit that was supremely fashionable for about two months. Since it took me forty days and forty nights to make the thing, my moment of glory was brief. I learned what my mother had been trying to tell me all along: high fashion has the shelf life of potato salad. And when past its prime, it is similarly deadly.
Once I left home and went to college I was on my own, fashion-wise, having bypassed my cousin in stature and capped the arrangement off by moving to another state. But I found I still had to reckon with lifeâs limited choices. After classes I worked variously as a house cleaner, typesetter, and artistsâ model. I could spend my wages on trendy apparel (which would be useless to me in any of my jobs, particularly the latter), or on the lesser gratifications of food and textbooks. It was a tough call, but I opted for education. This was Indiana and it was cold; when it wasnât cold,it was rainy. I bought an army surplus overcoat, with zip-out lining, that reached my ankles, and I found in my parentsâ attic a green pith helmet. I became a known figure on campus. Fortunately, this was the era in which army boots were a fashion option for coeds. And besides, who knew? Maybe under all that all-weather olive drab was a Bobbie Brooks sweater. My social life picked right up.
As an adult, I made two hugely fortuitous choices in the womenâs-wear department: first, I moved out West, where the buffalo roam and hardly anyone is ever arrested for being unstylish. Second, I became a novelist. Artists (also mathematicians and geniuses) are greatly indulged by society when it comes to matters of grooming. If we happen to look like an unmade bed, itâs presumed weâre preoccupied with plot devices or unifying theories or things of that ilk.
Even so, when I was invited to attend an important author event on the East Coast, a friend took me in hand.
âWriters are supposed to be eccentric,â I wailed.
My
My thanks to Doris Lessing and William Saroyan and Miss Truman Richey. And every other wise teacher who may ever save a surly soul like mine.
LIFE WITHOUT GO-GO BOOTS
Fashion nearly wrecked my life. I grew up beyond its pale, convinced that this would stunt me in some irreparable way. I donât think it has, but for a long time it was touch and go.
We lived in the country, in the middle of an alfalfa field; we had no immediate access to Bobbie Brooks sweaters. I went to school in the hand-me-downs of a cousin three years older. She had excellent fashion sense, but during the three-year lag her every sleek outfit turned to a pumpkin. In fifth grade, when girls were wearing straight shifts with buttons down the front, I wore pastel shirtwaists with cap sleeves and a multitude of built-in petticoats. My black lace-up oxfords, which my parents perceived to have orthopedic value, carried their own weight in the spectacle. I suspected people noticed, and I knew it for sure on the dayBilly Stamps announced to the lunch line: âMake way for the Bride of Frankenstein.â
I suffered quietly, casting an ever-hopeful eye on my eighth-grade cousin whose button-front shifts someday would be mine. But by the time I was an eighth grader, everyone with an iota of social position wore polka-dot shirts and miniskirts. For Christmas, I begged for go-go boots. The rest of my life would be endurable if I had a pair of those white, calf-high confections with the little black heels. My mother, though always inscrutable near Christmas, seemed sympathetic; there was hope. Never mind that those little black heels are like skate blades in inclement weather. I would walk on air.
On Christmas morning I received white rubber boots with treads like a pair of Michelins. My mother loved me, but had missed the point.
In high school I took matters into my own hands. I learned to sew. I contrived to make an apple-green polyester jumpsuit that was supremely fashionable for about two months. Since it took me forty days and forty nights to make the thing, my moment of glory was brief. I learned what my mother had been trying to tell me all along: high fashion has the shelf life of potato salad. And when past its prime, it is similarly deadly.
Once I left home and went to college I was on my own, fashion-wise, having bypassed my cousin in stature and capped the arrangement off by moving to another state. But I found I still had to reckon with lifeâs limited choices. After classes I worked variously as a house cleaner, typesetter, and artistsâ model. I could spend my wages on trendy apparel (which would be useless to me in any of my jobs, particularly the latter), or on the lesser gratifications of food and textbooks. It was a tough call, but I opted for education. This was Indiana and it was cold; when it wasnât cold,it was rainy. I bought an army surplus overcoat, with zip-out lining, that reached my ankles, and I found in my parentsâ attic a green pith helmet. I became a known figure on campus. Fortunately, this was the era in which army boots were a fashion option for coeds. And besides, who knew? Maybe under all that all-weather olive drab was a Bobbie Brooks sweater. My social life picked right up.
As an adult, I made two hugely fortuitous choices in the womenâs-wear department: first, I moved out West, where the buffalo roam and hardly anyone is ever arrested for being unstylish. Second, I became a novelist. Artists (also mathematicians and geniuses) are greatly indulged by society when it comes to matters of grooming. If we happen to look like an unmade bed, itâs presumed weâre preoccupied with plot devices or unifying theories or things of that ilk.
Even so, when I was invited to attend an important author event on the East Coast, a friend took me in hand.
âWriters are supposed to be eccentric,â I wailed.
My
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