Find the Good by Heather Lende

Author:Heather Lende
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2015-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Put on a Costume Now and Then

You’d think as a mother of five I would have gotten the hang of creating costumes for Halloween. I never did, but I have learned that there are benefits to wearing one, both for your own sake and to make someone else happy.

I was trick-or-treating with my children one stormy year—I used giant silver trash bags to dress them as raindrops, for which they have never forgiven me—when a neighbor complimented me on my Halloween costume. I wasn’t wearing one. I had pulled on my rubber rain gear—bibs and jacket, fishing boots and waterproof hat. (It was pouring and we were on foot.) The hat was a yellow sou’wester—the kind you see on old salts who are advertising clam chowder—which may have been part of the misunderstanding. I laughed and thanked her, but the comment stuck with me because it could have been true. When I bought that hat I might have chosen the dark green model to blend in more with the weather, but I grabbed the yellow one because it was brighter, and I knew wearing something so bold would make walking through town in the rain more fun.

All the world really is a stage, and men and women alike dress for parts every day. When I interview a family for an obituary I always dress up a little more than usual, out of respect for them, and so they see that I have a different role from the person they know from the softball games or the farmer’s market.

The adventure tour guides who work here every summer buy the canvas carpenter pants and brown rubber fishing boots worn by locals as soon as they arrive. Some purchase well-used ones at the Salvation Army thrift store to appear even more in character. Sometimes old-timers make fun of this, but I think it’s smart. When the guides look like they belong, they feel like they do, so they take their jobs more seriously. Some of them become so fond of those boots that they move here so they can wear them all year long.

My mother was a teacher and a principal. She wore jeans and sneakers at home but a skirted suit with heels to school. She taught me the importance of dressing for the occasion, out of respect for others and for yourself. When I served on the school board, I did not wear jeans and rubber boots to important or contentious meetings. I chose what I called my “schoolteacher outfit.” For about twenty years I wore the same dark wool dress and clogs whenever I needed a suit of emotional armor.

I miss that dress. My mother-in-law bought it for me at a shop outside of Boston. It was expensive, but she said it was a classic that I’d be able to wear for years. Which is why, when my daughters helped me clean my closet and wanted to toss it, I pleaded, “It’s a classic!”

Had I really looked, as they insisted, like a cross between my mother and Florence Henderson from The Brady Bunch when I wore it? Oh well.

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