Sometimes I get lost in my reverie and I think of oh so many things to “talk” about.
I feel the need to continue with The Christmas Vixen. Or to delve into the spiral of heart ache my brother is going through. Or to speak on how my own heart hurts from longing. But instead I shall tell you of the sequin gown.
My mother used to work at the Main Post Office when I was little. This was the hub of all things postal and was the largest building I had ever seen. There were so many sorting machines and package handlers, so many tubs of letters and bags and boxes of all sorts. To me it was like being in a giant toy factory…it held all the wonders of a small girl with an extremely vivid imagination. I was in heaven.
My Mother would tell me all these stories of people I would never meet and of things I could never understand. She would tell me of all the “characters” she worked with and I would imagine they were truly wonderful people. I would hear of the card games they played while sorting mail and the practical jokes they played on supervisors. She would tell me of the drinking that was done on window ledges with the bright lights of the city dancing around their drunken haze. I knew who was having affairs with who and who was pregnant as a result.
Yes, I was but a little girl but I was also my Mother’s confidant. She told me all the things she never had anyone else to tell. Then one day she told me of this one woman who would wear sequin gowns and high heels, just to sit on a stool and sort mail for 12 hours a night. No one ever asked her why and she remains an anomaly to this day.
As I grew older, my Mother would continue to share the strange tales of the night and the players would often change but I always wondered about the woman and her sequin gown.
Well one day recently I begin to understand why she probably thought it made sense to wear her fancy dresses to a dusty warehouse in the middle of the night. She felt as I do…where else would she go? I think that she too, felt like life held no joy… no love… no amusing times. So she gave in to her loneliness and donned her fancy dresses for the only party she knew…work.
To this end, I too have decided to wear my best clothes whenever I can. I have all these dresses I bought to go places I never go, with someone I do not know. I have things with tags still attached, some are years old, hanging around collecting more dust than memories. So I too shall wear my “sequined gowns” and maybe one day someone shall tell their child the story of me…I can only hope I remembered by someone… somewhere.
http://www.last.fm/music/Corinne+Bailey+Rae/_/Till+It+Happens+to+You
~*~ Arsenic & Apathy *~* 