Who are you supposed to be?

During Sunday dinner at my Mom's house on October 28, I asked my teenaged niece and nephew if they were planning to dress up for school on Halloween. My nephew M said "No" without any hesitation. My niece (the other Carrie) said "Yes." When asked who or what she was going to be for Halloween, she said, "I don't know. I just know that I'm going to dress up." Their father, my brother D, said his daughter is very much like him in many ways, but this desire to dress up for Halloween is not one of them.

It's not like me either. I rarely have the desire to dress up in a costume. I don't sew. I don't feel like I'm creative enough to think up and create a costume on my own, and I don't very often choose to spend money on a store-bought costume. But mostly, there's that residual shyness from my childhood: "Why do anything that's going to cause anyone to look at me?" 

So I had no intention of dressing up for my work party at the office or the Halloween party at my daughter's house later that night.

But then I woke up Halloween morning and thought of the Sunday dinner conversation. Why not be a tiny bit braver like the other Carrie and dress up? And like my niece Carrie on Sunday, I didn't know who or what I was going to be.

I just went to my closet and put on this:

And then put on this:

So I ended up looking like this:

Then I went to work. The first question was not, "Who are you supposed to be?" It was, "How do those toe shoes feel?" I was told by two friends that they can't handle wearing anything between their toes--not even flip flops--so those shoes would drive them crazy.

By the time anyone asked "Who are you supposed to be?" I had worked out a response: "Who do you think?" And the answers varied. I heard responses like: "You look kind of like Holly Hobby." "You look like one of those peacenik protesters from the 60s." "You remind me of a homeless person."

I replied that I really didn't have anyone or anything in particular in mind when I got dressed that morning. "I'm a human Rorschach test. Who you think I am tells me more about you than it does about me." :)

And it was kind of true. The woman who thought I looked like Holly Hobby is extremely cute and likes Hello Kitty. The man who thought I looked like a 60s protester has a beard and hangs out with biker friends at Sturgis and maybe would have protested the Vietnam war if he had been old enough to go to a protest. (But it wasn't completely true, because my friend who thought I looked kind of homeless is not really the homeless-type herself--although, she would have much empathy for the homeless, I'm sure.)

When I think about it, I realize this outfit sort of was inspired by a real person. The last time I went to the state Arts Festival, I saw a man wearing a dress and a pair of five-finger toe shoes. Yes, a man. He looked really comfortable and quite at home at the Arts Festival.

In closing--in answer to the question "Who are you supposed to be?"--I offer this: