The 5th chakra
I realize that I have been absent from this blog for several weeks. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped writing or that I’ve stopped moving my body. On the contrary, I’m doing both in a steadier, more sustained way than I ever would have believed possible. I managed to log 100 running/walking miles in October, and celebrated the start of November with a strong nine-mile run. I walked 11.5 miles yesterday with my husband, and am aiming to log a 10-mile run this weekend. I also have been doing daily wall sits and sustained planks interspersed with yoga sun salutations. I usually begin my morning with these exercises, which feels delightfully invigorating. In between all that, I have been writing furiously and participating in a different sort of challenge, something that I’ve termed “the closet challenge.”
The challenge is to wear a completely different outfit every day in November. Different outfit means all exterior apparel items must not duplicate those worn on another day during the month, including tops, bottoms, visible leg wear, and shoes. My friend Donna Bryson, a longtime reporter for the Associated Press and now a freelance writer, did the challenge with a friend of hers from about mid-September through mid-October and posted pictures of her different outfits every day on Facebook. Rashly, I announced I would give the challenge a try, then realized a few things: I didn’t have thirty different pairs of shoes, I didn’t really have a budget to buy new clothes, and November is a month where daylight diminishes and temperatures tip down toward the teens.
Donna eased my anxieties by noting that no shopping was allowed for the challenge, and that I could “reinvent” shoes with paint, glitter, or other accoutrements. She also added a new perspective on the challenge by sending me a link to a “style survey”, which turned out to be an information gathering questionnaire for a book that a team of women are writing on fashion in the twenty-first century. I took the survey and was impressed with the questions. Clearly these authors are not in search of a book on the latest chic. They seriously want to know why women make the clothing decisions that they make, day in and day out, and are curious about clothes influence perceptions of the self at work, play, home, and rest. I was so intrigued with their project that I have invited the co-authors to communicate with my Digital Storytelling students when I teach that course again in January 2014, and was thrilled when they responded that they would be delighted to participate.
My uniform
But on to clothes. My style is very basic. Most of the time, I wear what I call “my uniform” — a long sleeved, brightly colored cotton blouse with comfortable pants. The pants include blue jeans, cargo pants, yoga slacks, and a couple of very vibrantly colored cotton pants that Old Navy sells purportedly as pajamas. I usually wear old running shoes, and I often work out in the same clothes that I dress in throughout the day. For about five years, I have dressed this way in the name of comfort, efficiency, and affordability. Everything I wear is simply tailored, washable and dry able, and built to last. I buy many of these clothes during the holiday shopping season when markdowns and special sales drop the prices into single digits.
I began the closet challenge on November 1 knowing that my uniform would get me through perhaps eight or nine days. To make it through all thirty days, I would need to tap the business-casual skirts and sweaters that I have accumulated but rarely wear, the Indian-style salwar kameez and lenghas that were tailor-made for me in the 1990s, and probably some not-made-for-winter attire that I grew particularly fond of during my years of living in Hawai’i. The latter group includes a lot of sarongs wrapped around the lower half of the body and tucked in at the waist, like a bath towel. Although one can get away with going to work in such outfits in Hawai’i, I have yet to test the outfit east of the Pacific Ocean.
November began on a Friday. The temperature was in the 60s, and I ended up spending much of the day in running shorts. The following day, the temperature fell into the 20s and I found the bulk of my day was spent huddled in a long apron while volunteering at the Saratoga Farmers Market. Day 3 was Diwali. I planned to dress to the nines. But I devoted the day to doing a lot of writing, the nine-mile run, and some pretty serious cooking in the kitchen. By the evening, I knew I wasn’t changing out of the sweats I had pulled on after showering, post-run. At that point, however, I decided to organize my clothing choices thematically. That’s where the fun began.
Spiritual style
November 4 through 10 were the “chakra” days. I wore a top every day that week representing the seven colors on the chakra scale: red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, indigo, and purple. Most of the blouses were from the “uniform” ensemble, but as I posted photos of myself on Facebook, I found myself considering the earthly elements, moods and emotions that the colors were supposed to represent. Sometimes, these choices came unconsciously: on the “orange” day, I noted that orange represented the element of water and one’s emotional state. I spoke of wearing a bright orange windbreaker as representing my fear that if I didn’t break up my day with a run, the schedule of meetings and appointments would “sap” my spirit and “drain” my energy. My sister noted that the words “sap” and “drain” connoted images of water, and my friend Donna queried whether the orange glow of the fire in the fireplace behind me in the photo was also an aspect of my orange. Later in the week I found that light blue (and its correlation with communication) seemed conducive to my inner dialogue with works I was studying in the hip-hop archives collection at the Schomburg Center for Black Culture in Harlem, NY, and that the purple jersey that I wore with a skirt seemed to make my relationship with those working with me on building a social movement via hip-hop appear spiritual in scope.
I also noticed another thing: Dressing up wasn’t such an awful thing.
That lesson was reiterated today when I decided to devote the next few days to wearing my collection of apparel from India. I worried in advance because most of these clothing items are made for warmer weather and they are not conducive to work days that often include a workout in the middle. And, there was a third concern that I kept close to my chest until I finally decided to take it public: I am uncomfortable wearing Indian styles of clothing around people who are predominantly not Indian. I don’t like the questions, the side glances, the smiles, and the flattering comments about how pretty the clothing looks. The discomfort goes back to my childhood days when I often felt singled out and ridiculed for being Indian. But I also trace it to my passions for physical fitness and for keeping my body moving: how does one reconcile an afternoon run in a park, a bike ride, or even yoga when one is wearing a long flowing tunic and keeping one’s core warm with layers of filmy, silky, ornately embroidered scarf-like material instead of a “sensible” fleece jacket and knitted cap?
Feeling the flow
Pondering the question took me to an interesting space, something that I vaguely associated with the origins of the clothes themselves. The salwar kameez is popular because it is versatile. The dupatta — the layers of filmy scarf-like material referred to earlier — can serve as an attractive scarf, or a shoulder wrap, or a blanket, or a towel, or a sheet. While traveling in India in the 1990s, I often used dupatta for all of these purposes. In Hawai’i, I treated them as skirts. Similarly, the loose flowing pants can keep the legs warm and they also can serve as a windbreaker. I found this morning when temperatures hovered around 25 degrees that I could wear running tights underneath the pants and be even warmer than I often am when wearing jeans. The tunic top also is long and flowing, which allows for a long-sleeved t-shirt or blouse to fit comfortably underneath. As I dressed, I did so with the intention of going for a run just before sunset, and ended up wearing a combination of clothing that I would wear almost any day, except that it was filmy, silky, colorful and flowing instead of tight and simple.
Wearing the salwar kameez and wearing skirts last week also seemed to alter my ability to communicate before a crowd — in a way that I would consider positive. On Saturday, I dressed with indigo (and comfort) in mind. I was in New York City for the first day of the Hip-Hop Education Center’s two day Think Tank, and knew I probably would spend a good 14 to 16 hours of the day walking and carrying a backpack. So I wore my usual uniform: blue cotton blouse, black yoga pants, old running shoes. I was comfortable, looked reasonably attractive, and felt — well, a bit scattered in my communication throughout the day. On day 2, I wore a skirt, fashion boots, and a purple cotton blouse. I felt serene, authoritative, and connected with the crowd. I spoke into a microphone from a stage that was adorned with super-bright lights and faced an auditorium that held perhaps 150 people. I stated exactly what was on my mind with very little preparation and was amazed at how good I sounded. This afternoon, in my salwar kameez, I worked in my office on a creative presentation I’m scheduled to deliver tomorrow on internationalizing ourselves. I had roughed out an outline earlier. At my computer, the words flowed smoothly and succinctly. I stood up alone in my office and recited the presentation four times, editing it and trimming it as I went along. I went home feeling as if I had somehow taken charge of something.
Do clothes make a person? Do they change the way the body stands in space and flows through interactions, relationships, and communicative moments? It will be interesting to explore these questions as November continues.
Moving Your Body 