I don’t remember where I heard it, but I remember the message clearly: there are rules that a woman must follow to appear “put together.” Things like your shoes must “go“ with your top. If you can’t get shoes that go with your top, then your socks definitely do. Your toenail polish and fingernail polish must match and “go“ with your outfit. Then there’s the idea that your shoes must match your handbag. At some point, I remember hearing that my makeup needed to “go” with my outfit. One of the things that I liked about the punk rockers in LA was how they didn’t appear put together. Like there was a willfulness about how they presented. Like they were refusing to ensure that nothing they wore went together. I admired it, envied it and was completely incapable of mimicking it.
Somewhere in my 30s, I slowly started being more who I wanted to be. What that meant was sometimes my toes and fingers didn’t match. Let’s be clear… I didn’t go crazy… They still kind of went together, but they didn’t match any more. One of the rules was that if a woman was wearing a skirt she had to wear shoes with heels. One day I went on an outing with a woman that I worked with and she was wearing a skirt and flats. Not just flats, but they were chunky black flats that almost looked like short combat boots. I still love that look and now it seems widely accepted. At the time it shook my foundation.
Recently I took a print making class. I like to paint and draw but my stuff is pretty rudimentary. I think a big part of that is some deep down desire for order. It was that same desire that loved being put together. There were rules and the end product always looked good. But life and art are disordered. Even with all our rules and ideas, life is messy and it is that mess that makes it beautiful. So this print class we took is a kind of art that is messy. I don’t mean that the outcome is particularly messy. Somehow the process makes each piece original and there is a real lack of control. In the 2 hours we were there. I tried multiple ways to make my prints look good and the more I tried to control the outcome, the less appealing they were.
I walked away with the clear knowledge that I was going to have to let go of my ideas of order if I wanted my prints to be good. I have to learn how to get messy and just play.
I suspect that this is also true of life. The more I try to control, the less appealing it is. The more I just show up and trust the process (and throw some paint on the wall) the more beautiful and unique my life will be.
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