CLOTHING RANT

HERE'S MY FIRST RANTALICIOUS TOPIC:

CLOTHING STYLES

Clothing styles today make me growl like a caveman in despair. Reasons aplenty abound for my angst. 

The fabrics are all thin now, even in jackets and sweaters. That means instead of one garment, one must layer, and layer and layer in order to stay warm. Great for the profit margin of clothing manufacturers, but not so great for my budget bottom line or closet space.  Those fabrics are all stretchy, too, so a person has to pull and pull to get something off.  Getting naked takes a long time.  One does have those occasions when speed is of the romantic essence.

I enjoy modesty.  I do not enjoy necklines revealing what very few of us should be seeing.  I’d like to pick and choose who gets to see my cleavage, thank you very much.  And yet, I find it difficult to find dresses and blouses without necklines plunging deep into body crevasses.  There are times, and places and I want to be the one deciding.

Wool and some synthetic fabrics and I do not get along anymore.  I don’t want to be pricked or slimed. What’s worse, that slimy fabric reveals every ounce of me and I don’t like it. Again, there are times and places and I want to be the one deciding. I like soothing fabric, the kind that hugs or drapes and billows.

The sleeves on blouses, tops, tunics (whatever you call them), dresses and even some jackets are short, short, short, about the size of those colonial-style, polished silver drawer pulls you can fit all four fingers under.  They are little afterthoughts, flaps of material that don’t deserve to be called “sleeves.”  If a person happens to have fat, fat arms like I do, they look ridiculous.  If a person has medium-sized or even normal arms, they still look ridiculous.  They look fine on the arms of 10 year-olds, but that’s where I draw the line.

What sadist thought of putting two buttons above the zipper on a pair of pants?  When I have to go, I have to GO and I don’t have time to unbutton two buttons and THEN unzip my pants.  I understand the buttons on the waistband, which now is really a hip-band in most pants, can keep the crack-baring slippage to a minimum.  And really, I like the hip-band kind of pants, the “mid-rise” I believe is the term, because that’s how my body is shaped and normal pants set the waistband close to my bra band in order that the crotch not be at my knees, but that two-button thing has got to go.  In the meantime, I button only one, and hope for the best.  I confess, this method is for going out in public pants, only.  At home, I have reverted to the elastic waistband stretch pants. I can do yoga at a moment’s notice, for one thing.  But the most important reason for this fashion decision is that with one tug down and over, you are ready to go.

Every color of fabric is not available every year.  And anyone can tell what year you bought a particular piece of apparel by its color.  Remember the pink (gack!) and purple years? The brown and turquoise years?  The peach and turquoise years? The orangy-reddy-peach with brown years? This past year was the darker hue of turquoise tending toward teal but lighter (turqteal?)with several colors year.  I’ve enjoyed this year.  

I like red.  Red hasn’t been the color of choice since when, the late 60’s-early 70’s? That makes it difficult to find something new in a color I like.  For that reason, I wear a lot of black.  Black goes with everything even though people think you’ve been in mourning the last 20 years.  It goes with my coloring and makes the wearer look thinner, so I’ve been told. Black is my go-to color.  Just not on my bathroom tile grout.

I love fashion and I love style.  I know how to mix and match and use single pieces for years so they still look fashionable. I wore a collarless blazer for 20 years that my mother had worn in high school and then passed on to me after she'd worn it 20 years. I passed it on to my niece who wore it forever.  It was red and warm. Clothing used to be like that.  Please, could we have that again?

RANTALICIOUS!

RANT

(My nomination for newest literary genre)

Our spiritual teachers have advised us that we cannot achieve inner peace if we complain.  I understand that we should instead feel gratitude and seek out ways to feel grateful.  We do feel better and our world does better with our change in perception.

However, I believe that in order for gratitude to find its place within, take seed and grow, we must empty out whatever is taking its place, and the best method for doing that is a literary genre unto its own, the rant.

Dylan Thomas urged his father to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light!”  What more proof than that do you need?

Once you get things off your chest, then you have space to breathe.

My friend and I, who both had careers in education, employed this technique for ranting:  We packed an overnight bag, headed for the nearest big city for some shopping and some theatre, and then we jumped in either her car or mine.  We called whichever car it was the “Ventmobile.”  Each one of us got at least five minutes, maybe ten if the story was complicated, to rant at our heart’s content.  We listened intently to the ranter, either quiet or cheering like call and response, “Amen! You said it, Sister!” 

When we finished, we were detoxified.  We’d accomplished an energy shift and we felt incredibly better than when we’d boarded the Ventmobile.  We had space to be happy and giggle and breathe and wonder and be inspired. We filled that empty space with fun and happy memories.

One of my writer friends is an expert at the rant.  I love listening to her whether I share her peeve or not because her energy crackles and sparks in the telling of her story.  Even if she’s writing the rant, I can feel how involved she is right then in her life.  She’s not sitting comatose in front of her TV.  She’s engaged and alive.  And usually funny. Speaking her truth and getting over herself.

Holding anger in destroys the liver.  If we don’t rant, we fall ill.  Rants are like taking a spiritual poop.  They help us get centered, make a change, feel grateful.  Often I find connections with others as well, because they share the same pea in the shoe, thorn in the side, bur in the butt gripe that I do.  Conversation ensues.  A good rant leads you at its end to the question, “So now what are you going to do about it?” The answer will help you form a plan of action.

Messages from recent meditations have told me in various ways that now is the time for me to work on the throat chakra, the speaking the truth chakra, that turquoise Adam’s apple.  If I’m receiving the message, I feel honor-bound to heed its intent.

The Universe is ready for me to rant.  I’m going to have me some fun. Stay tuned for rant number one, soon to follow.