Ballrooms and Broadway

“They’re such fine carriages, with windows like mirrors, and inside there’s velvet and silk, and there are court lackeys wearing epaulettes and swords. I looked into all the carriages, they had ladies sitting in them, all finely attired, perhaps they were princesses and countesses. It was actually the time of evening when everyone is hurrying off to balls and gatherings. It must be interesting to see princesses and other high society women close up it must be wonderful, I’ve never done it, unless you count dancing into carriages like this evening. You came to mind then. Ah, dearest, sweet one, when I think of you, my heart is anguished. Why are you so unhappy, Varvara? My angel, in what way are you worse than all of them? You are so good and beautiful and clever. Why is your lot so wretched? What does it always happen that good man is desolate while some other man has good fortune thrust upon him?”

Fodor Dostoyevsky in “Poor Folk”, 1846

**********

Dear Alex,

When a woman with a full wardrobe shops for clothes, perhaps the twelfth pair of black stockings for her weekend curl on couch or another one-of-a-kind sequined gown to a soiree, she is looking not to impress but to tell a story about herself.

Her narrative can be long and ruffled, crisis cascading as a slit through thigh, a burlesque of taboos in pleats at the underarm. Can you hear the sigh of princess and countess, the nanny and granny, witch, mannequin, the mad and bad-ass?

About 15 years rewound in a big city mostly toured for love and magic, I received two unusual invitations in a month of summer - one for an early morning live interview at the local TV station, another from the local newspaper to contribute an article as its guest writer. These offers spangled my CV, dropped me down to a pair of pressed trousers and ousted out any doubt of self worth in my march. I had something to say, my story enfolded in the testimonies of others was heading for the stage microphone.

The year before my summer of offers, I along with three of my classmates was awarded by the U.S. Public Health Services. We had just created a student organization about raising awareness of a national crisis killing more teens than motor crash and bullying: prescription opioid abuse. I named our mission with my co-founding teammates, drafted a charter to formalize our cause, lectured on platform in high school gyms.

Doors swung broadly, words shot through windows, a teary teen in the audience tapped my back to tell me about the plight of his older brother and thanked me. In cropped jeans and leather jackets, I was outfitted at the right timber and time to be a mouthpiece of change, hope for the despairing in dark. If I could be more honest about addiction, I would see in my closet excess of conceit, my beaded dresses and tracksuits converting me to myself day to yawn, dormant as door knobs affixed to access and opportunity.

I have shopped for velvet and silk, high on epaulettes and speech. Wonderful, good fortune, dancing in the concoction of fantasy until the booze and buzz run out. A zombie cleared of truth, mired in illusions, dead to life-saving grace.

This is why I come on Saturdays to Zoom gathering with friends in conversations and reflections of life-and-death matters, opening epistles of transcending wisdom as relevant today as in their ancient origins. This is also why I cannot resist turning back again and nightly to the verses of life, poetry and psalm that never fail to speak to a child or an open ear.

Soon this Sunday morning I will be sharing my reason for reading what counts the most in innumerable assets, investments infinitely secured, silk violet velvet and gems brilliant in purpose for you and us, starting not on broadway or carriages but in a manger under starlight.

Yours, Kate