STORY GALLERY > EPAULETS
Whimsical Art Epaulets
Shades of Purple
Whimsical Flower Epaulets
When I was a wee thing learning to sew, my mama always said "You want to make the inside as nice as the outside". My mama was a good "life coach". My inside wasn't always as nice as my outside during major life upheavals, but I heard her words when I got down to stitching my life back together. My mama is 90 next month and I am living with her. I've been away on a tiny island or a mountaintop far from her for too long. We're having fun and she's telling me stories I haven't heard, plus all the ones I've heard forever. We've been playing in the backyard, her on the porch potting flowers and I, weeding and preparing a spot for a veggie garden. Something I dreamed of doing, but never had my place long enough or time to tend to it. But I'm on "time out" now and so it goes. It feels good to be "home".
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My mama loves my whimsical flower epaulets. Every day after writing a story about them, I wear the pair I've been writing about out to the kitchen, where at the table she sits working her jigsaw puzzle. She slides her glasses down her nose and peers over their rim, to look at me. Her look is serious and intense, as the play of puzzling takes much concentration. When she sees the bouquet on my shoulders though, her eyes light up and her laughter is that of a child.
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I haven't shown her these Shades of Purple epaulets yet, because I'm writing, but I know they will be her favorite so far. She loves pinks and purples and frilly and girly, and everything romantic and floral, as much as I do. Maybe more. And she'll be delighted to see that their insides are as nice as the outside. ​
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Black Collar
Whimsical Leaf Epaulets
This whimsical pair of gray and black sequin leaf epaulets are fastened to a satin collar. They remind me of the iridescent wings, of ravens. First thing every day during the gray winter months, I'd step outside into the crisp Cali air and take in a few lungfuls. It was usually early when there was dew on the grass yet. Ravens flew from tree to tree cawing loudly as if announcing the rising sun that seemed to burn off the gray in the sky and show up instead as wing-like shadows across the neighbor's lawns. They owned the morning time, these ravens. When I got around to taking my dog Snoopy on his Snoop-about, I'd pass a fence on top of which 4 or 5 ravens perched. They looked like a secret counsel of elders, in plain sight, who had been up all night working some magic in the world. They'd get really quiet when we'd pass by as if they had been talking about us. "Shhh, here they come". Really still, as if in stillness they could blend into the background.
Recently the ravens haven't been around. And I wonder why. I think about the few mornings in a row when I walked outside to see 2 small birds in flight chasing the ravens down the street, away from the wooded area where they usually hang out. While the ravens inspired in me a sense of wonder, they were pissing these small birds off, probably for stealing their eggs. Still, I miss them. I miss their loud cawing every morning. I miss their fearlessness. I miss their mysterious air. The deeper questions their presence sparked in me. And I wonder if there is a clear message I was supposed to get from them, but didn't understand. And ironically, if that message is, "If there is no more mystery (aka food) here, it's time to leave"... Cali, planet Earth, or just this current mindset I am in. In indigenous culture, people wore costumes that represented their totem animal, for ceremonies. So maybe I should put these epaulets on and go hang out in the raven's wooded lair and instead of questioning the raven's flight, become them, and simply embrace mystery...you know...live the questions...
Blue Fringe
Whimsical Flower Epaulets
There is a lot of talk out there about "owning" one's power. Shoulder pads are the visual and fashionable embodiment of "power". One might assume because of their size that these large, double D bra cup epaulets embody "big power". And they do, but because they are covered in blue lace, flower-embellished, and are trimmed with a ridiculously thick and twisted upholstery fringe, their vibe is that of a big frilly clown. Their superpower is their ability to spark laughter. It's fun to Imagine a world in which the folks in our political bodies are wearing them and "owning their power". I suppose I'd need to get busy and make a red pair too then.
Additional costume characters that these blue fringe epaulets suggest are "Little Bo Peep", "Nature Nymph" and "Flower Princess" for those of you with a sweeter disposition, and "French Courtesan", "Garden Tart" and "Flower Floozie" for those less so.
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