Rajasthan, Weddings, Measurements. India, 1982.

An ongoing and occasional series on a 3-month trip I took to India in 1982. I was 25, and traveled by train across the country alone, writing an article on the then-unknown Indian film industry and combating the anxieties of youth and solo travel. Often includes references to what I wore. You can find the previous posts here.

I left Udaipur and traveled up further into Rajasthan. Chittorgarh, Pushkar, Ajmer, Jaipur. I stayed at a government rest house, as advised, where, as it transpired, they tried to kick me out. I was invited, on a train, to the wedding of the rail line's paymaster's daughter. I declined. I was, at that point, intent on sticking to my plan. It was all I had in the midst of so much new and foreign.

But more than the signs quaintly telling me I was not welcome,


or those Technicolor temples I could enter, where newlyweds posed for the camera,

and mirrored mosaics lined the walls,


more even than camels pulling carts,

wedding parades with grooms on caparisoned donkeys,


or small children watching from arched and painted windows,


in this part of my trip I came to understand that by traveling alone in India I was inviting attention I neither wanted nor knew how to manage.

On the way to Ajmer, the train guard left me a note.

"Hello Dolly. Namaste. I want to meet you at Ajmer with you. You should meet me at platform. Then we go to picther or see the Ajmer city with us. I like you. Yours."

I did not meet him.

I took a bus to Pushkar. Three men sat on the bench seat in front of me. One of them, a propos of of absolutely nothing, turned around and asked, "You enjoy the sex?" I started yelling at him, "Why do you ask me that? How come you think you can just ask me that? What is wrong with you?" At which point he and everyone around me began apologizing. "I can tell you have good nature, " said the man next to me. "You say good."

That night I thought, "I should have gone to the wedding of the train paymaster. I would have been an honored guest. I would have given his daughter a large wedding present. Dollars." It would have been something neither the family nor I would ever forgotten. I only regret what I haven't done.

And then I decided I wanted a salwar kameez. The Northern Indian costume of tunic and pants. I wanted to fit in, to be less visible. In Jaipur, you could get one made at the street bazaar. Tailors sat in booths hung with curtains. I do not remember how I chose, but I picked out a sky blue fabric covered with small, muted gold patterns, from a young Kashmiri. He pulled the curtains closed, and began to measure me. Yes. Measure me. It took me much longer than my usual level of competence would predict to realize that these measurements were not necessary. I do not know if I was lulled by the way he kept patting my cheek softly, or by all the colored bolts of cloth, but when he looked up at one point and said, "This is OK?", I realized it wasn't. I backed up. He nodded his head, no objection, no more measurements, no harm done. As though he was experimenting with a new species to find out what was possible, and having found out, was content to let it go.

At least he asked.

Of all the mistakes I made in India, or wrong decisions, or social gaffes, that one stayed heavy with regret and embarrassment. I felt terribly ashamed, too ashamed even to admit shame. So foolish. I read my journal now and see that I was not honest with myself afterward. I tried to brush it aside, to tell myself it was OK. But I felt it was my fault, I felt I should have known, I felt I had participated. He had a pretty mouth.


I look back on my trip through India and I can see that I thought I could protect myself by dressing appropriately, keeping my head down, and writing diligently in a notebook. I didn't understand that by traveling alone, unmarried, in a culture where women married young and traveled in reserved train cars, I had put myself out on a cliff, lit by spotlights and announced by megaphone. My own personal "son et lumiere."

I hold no grudge, almost 30 years later. No one ever harmed me. No one persisted, much, past the first signs they'd gotten it wrong. A voyage of self-discovery at 25, unmarried, alone. I was apt to discover men. But I was too overwhelmed by the journey to pay attention, to understand the culture, to keep my guard up. So they discovered me first. I was not ready. That's no one's fault, not mine, not theirs. I am only understanding this today. It's been harder to forgive myself.

I no longer have the salwar kameez. I'd show it to you if I did.

Images: me

Absolute Rules For What You Wear, Or, Saturday Morning at 9:07am

I believe that there are very few absolute rules. Besides religion, of course, but let's leave that aside for now.

If we aren't discussing religion, and I am not, what then remains as absolute? To my way of thinking, kindness, violence, responsibility.

What we ought to wear? Not absolute. The question of what is "appropriate" dress always needs to be answered with a question. "Appropriate in what context?"

I'm thinking in particular about two recent posts. One, my own about manicures and pedicures. The other, on Corporette, about what to wear to trial. I confessed to jumping to conclusions about the wearing of colored fingernail polish, others said that bare nails were "unprofessional." In the Corporette comments, lawyer after lawyer debated whether to wear pants or skirts to trial.

The trial example has a rational, analytical answer. While we might struggle with the idea that women are held to a different standard than men, or that something like clothing can trump talent or even justice, the judge rules his or her courtroom. The jurors decide your client's fate. In that situation, there are rules. They are absolute - in the smaller context of that judge, that jury, that room. No point in fighting. The consequences of breaking the judge's rules probably isn't worth it. Fight the larger battle - "Why can't we wear pants, if they are more comfortable, if men can?" - elsewhere. I for one will thank you. Skirts bug me. Sturdy Gals really prefer pants.

But let's consider fingernails. Professional networks are more diffuse than courtrooms. No judge sits at the head of the system, clearly establishing rules. In the absence of a final arbiter, all we are left with are biases. Biases which we may or not may share with others.

Shared biases become group norms. Singular biases, well, they make good drunken rants, or text exchanges with your best friend. "Can you believe he's wearing pleated pants in 2010? What does he think this is, 'Welcome Back, Kotter?'"

Most likely, everyone in formal corporations will share the bias that long fake nails are inappropriate for women in most positions. Evidently the feelings about short nails in medium shades of pink are mixed. Some women feel that bare nails look unprofessional. My 1970's-raised self clears her throat and wants to say, "Why do women have to groom and make glossy every centimeter of their body? Who says?" But that battle is too big to fight with two hands only.

What matters is that in these gray areas, without a judge in robes, or swinging doors to the courtroom, we own up to the fact that what we feel are biases, and no more. Social disapproval is valuable when it drives productive normative behavior. Normative behavior can allow a group to work well together, by removing social friction. If we are similar, we trust each other and don't waste time questioning why others diverge from our ways of doing things. But this goes only so far. Social disapproval becomes pursed lips, nothing more, when it prevents us from valuing the work of those who differ from us. Balancing the drive to norms with the acceptance of differences is the science of culture and management. It applies to style too. I'm guessing that we all know this and that even so you will not object to a reminder.

I confess my High WASP biases here. So that they are out in the open. So that where they have value they endure, and where they only shame they fall. Once my kind were dominant. Rules we invented live on, for better or for worse, and I hope that deconstruction leaves good bones in place.

By the way, you are all the most wonderful set of readers and commenters. Thank you.

Particuliere, Or, Should You Wear Nail Polish To The Office?

Nail parlors were few and far apart when I was young. I feel like I'm describing the Pony Express to someone raised on email, but many historical facts are difficult to absorb. Suburbs had no places for mani-pedis. Except your hair salon. I don't think I ever saw my mother with nail polish.

By the time I discovered nail salons, I had two young children. I could have cared less, at first, about color impact. It was all about getting to sit down for 45 minutes and have someone touch my feet. Without asking me to pick them up and or buy them non-nutritional foodstuffs. Over time, I found toe color reassuring. The moment of choosing felt significant. "Schiaparelli pink. No, this time, I'm Gothic red-brown." As a mother, you take your identity-reinforcing moments where you find them, especially in places that don't smell of pizza.

I went back to full-time work when my son was 7 and my daughter 10. Let me say now that I have never worn visible fingernail polish to the office. Let me also say that I don't think it's appropriate. I don't feel it reinforces a working identity. I feel this strongly, even though I may be completely wrong. And, even though I may be completely wrong, my opinion may be useful to understand. Because other women of my age and background often feel similarly. You may come in front of a judge, or a vice president, or potential customer, from my generation.

Women like me still struggle with colored fingernails. We still associate them with women of questionable virtue. Or movie stars. Who are sometimes the same people. Fingernail polish to us looks like you might laze around in a peignoir eating chocolates and throwing wrappers on the rug. As though you might get paid for that which should not be paid for.

However, if you are in fact a lady of leisure, even respectable leisure, that's a completely different story. Discrete flesh or pale pink tones for day, whatever brazen hussy hues you like for night. It's just something about the juncture of working and colored nails.

Pedicures are another story. If there were ever a time for indulgence, it would be pedicures. Whatever secret life you want your toes to have, throw caution to the wind. Goes without saying that I am assuming you cover the majority of your toe area at the office.

These days I don't go to an office. I don't have small children at my feet. Or anywhere. Instead, I read and write about style. The goals and parameters of polish are different in this world. And in my exhaustive research, it appears that Chanel has planted their flag on Nail Color Mountain and are not ceding the hill any time soon.

Which means, of course, that I was recently compelled to purchase their latest sortie. Particuliere. A brownish, greyish, lavenderish, mauve. Tish Jett, over at A Femme, provided the introduction, while Lauren, at kidchamp.net, presaged the phenomenon with her photo of the Essie version.

A moment of identity reinforcement. I am a person who wears the "It" polish. Today. This year. Do I really care about the "It" polish? No. I don't. It's just fun to feel au courant. My toenails are the same color as toenails all across the Internet.

But not my fingers. Wait. Oh, never mind. It's Friday. Let's put all social posturing aside. Let's forget about what's appropriate, or what my fingernails signify about my social or professional class. I type too hard to keep nail polish on for longer than 36 hours. And the sight of the little ovals of color flashing about a keyboard distract me. There. A nugget of truth. Sometimes people of a certain age use antiquated versions of, "It's not the done thing" as a way to reinforce personal preferences. And that is perhaps the most useful information of the day.

The color looks fab, by the way. Dignified, classic, a wee bit edgy. I could stick my feet into my light box and take a picture. Or not. Age brings a little wisdom*.

Have a wonderful weekend.

*No disparagement of Maureen, BTW. She has cute toes. And toe rings.

Images: me. And the usual light box.

Lilly Pulitzer Does Mardi Gras. Yes. That's What I Said.

Today I am at Lilly Lovers. Telling another story in the Lilly series. I'd call it silly Lilly, but Muffy came up with a much better title. "Lilly...with a twist." Imagine pink shifts and feather masks. Mardi Gras! I love New Orleans and its haunted self. I wish the city nothing but the best. Some day I'll get there for Fat Tuesday. For now, let's make do with stories.

When High WASPs Go Hipster. Or Try.

We can recognize High WASP style fairly easily. Pearls. Navy blue. Black Ferragamos and white button-fronts. Hunter green cable sweaters with hunter green wide wale cords and family brooches. Peach cashmere tunics, long gold chains, bags without logos. Even embroidered backpacks from a trip to Thailand.

But, now and again, High WASPs flirt with hipster-hood, an urban relative of the Artsy Cousin. Not at work of course. Unless we are gifted with a rare creative gene and work with people who wear skull patterns nonchalantly. Nor for grand occasions. Too risky. Too pronounced a protocol. But on a weekend. In a city. When giddy from the Sunday New York Times and too much Lapsang Souchong.

My brother is pretty good at hipster ways. Better than me. Luckily he gives great presents. For example. He gave me theese earrings for my birthday last year.

Gold twisted wires. Oxidized metal flowers. Black metal, by default, is always presumed to be kind of hip. Even when used for cute little posies. These are by Claudia Kussano, a San Francisco artisanal jeweler. (That's what we say about cheese. Does it work for earrings?) I believe these keep me in the world of tradition where women hang sweet notions from their earlobes, while implying that I might, just might, consider adventure. And if I'm wrong about that, only disillusion me if you must. I trust you to be gentle.

Here is something else which recently made its way from one hipster in my extended family to another of the more hip amongst us. Neither of them me, in other words.


Vera Bradley. Can't get much more traditional when worn as expected. But this belt, with boyfriend jeans, low on the hips, a t-shirt, hints at subversion. Irreverence, at least. Radiates 1970's retro, if you look closely. We like a few subtle rebellions, but still say, "Please," and "Thank you," and "You're welcome."

I believe it's good for everyone to widen their identity now and then. You true hipsters, dig out those pearls from Grandmama. They go with everything. Even skulls. The more conservative amongst us, now and then take a little bitty walk on the wild side. You might already. Do tell.

Images: me, Vera Bradley

New England High WASP Meets Swedish Empire, Meets Santa Barbara Semi-Tropics

This is my mother's house. The living room, one morning last week. Christmas wreath still hanging above the fireplace. Signs of High WASP eclecticism everywhere.

My mother said to me, in the midst of the semi-chaos, "You should do something for yourself." A mani-pedi wasn't in the cards. But it was completely possible to take pictures here and there. I asked both my mother and stepfather for permission to put up these photos, and they were kind enough to agree.

Their house is a classic merger, of old, new, Sweden, New England, Santa Barbara. And a couple of families.

For example, desks. From New England.

From Sweden. With new technology. And old.

Clocks. From Tiffany.

And somewhere in Sweden. Now next to a thermostat. As a house isn't a museum, after all. And winter's cold, even in Santa Barbara. Especially if you just got out of surgery.

Avocado trees. Palms. And tropical flowers that grow like weeds. Maybe they are weeds here.


Flowers sent to the hospital. And carried home. Murano glass candies, to be played with by grandchildren. Very useful in teaching the ultimate High WASP principle, i.e., delayed gratification.


And, like families everywhere, a wall of pictures.


Brothers, sisters, stepbrothers, stepsisters, mother, cousins, stepfather. Family.


Images: me. First one with a Panasonic Lumix. The rest with my iPhone and the ShakeIt fauxlaroid application. Because if you can't do a real photo shoot, fake it in low-fi. If it's good enough for Hollister Hovey, it's more than good enough for me.

An Open Letter Of Request To Hospitals For Discharge Plans, Or, Saturday Morning at 11:20am

Waking up in the morning to a blue-skyed Northern California is wonderful. Especially when there is almost nothing I have to do. Makes me gleefully and quietly happy.

This was quite the week. And far harder than I expected.

Imagine someone gets out of the hospital post-almost-dying and comes home. Early. Imagine no preparations have been made. No time to make any. Imagine that the only information you (the care-givers) receive is colored flyers about no salt and low fat and progressive walking, along with hand-scrawled doctors' notations of medications. Imagine you are faced with a row of prescription vials, a walker, and a styrofoam chest of IV antibiotic hookups sitting on the antique dining room table.

Imagine that the only other information comes from the patient, who is weak, and his wife, who is exhausted.

Imagine the visiting nurse is not due until the next day.

It was all harder than I expected. I want to ask any doctors reading here, or anyone who knows a doctor, or works in a hospital, why, if the information technology exists to create a customized discharge plan for patients recovering from serious procedures, it didn't happen. Was our experience an anomaly?

If you doctors, or you hospital administrators could arrange for everyone who leaves the hospital to have a plan including the following information, that would be very helpful. The plan should be typed. It should be readable. It should be simple. It should have all the information in one place. Please.

• A typed list of medications with instructions and risks. Handwriting is hard to read, and vials of pills that say, "Take as directed," aren't too useful. Cover everything. No fair including mysterious pills in packets along with the colored flyers. Also please tell us if aspirin or throat lozenges or over the counter stomach remedies are OK.
  
• A list of priorities for care. What matters more, no salt or low fat? How important is it that the patient carry out the breathing exercises on that colored flyer. How soon?
• A list of risks, in priority order. What do we need to watch out for? We know this is serious business and we don't know what to do about it.
• A day in the life. How should his day go? Best to take all pills at once? Morning and night? Regular meal schedules? When will he need to meet again with doctors?
• What home changes ought to be made? Raising chairs, toilets? Building supports and hand grasps?
  
• A list of all the doctors involved and their nurses, and the liaisons, along with phone numbers. We will probably need to call you, and it makes us anxious to have multiple little business cards that might get lost.
  
• If home care is involved, when will they be coming and what will they be doing? We love the visiting nurses, once they arrive. But that first night is crazy.
  

Thanks in advance. Let me also say that the medical care received was extraordinary, and I didn't talk to one person who was anything but kind, intelligent, competent, and eager to help. My stepfather feels better every day. It's not the people, it's something else that made this so difficult.

And to all of you who left kind words for me and my family here, more thanks. One thing I have to confess, though, before we return to style, to house furnishings, to careers and raptures and Privilege, is that I am not selfless by nature. Nor am I sweet by default. In fact, I've always been somewhat of a bull in a china shop. Prone to say what I think, even when others all around are resolutely avoiding exactly that. I learned High WASP growing up. I learned careful, square-jawed, corporate style over years of hard work. Wasn't native. If it were native, I probably wouldn't be writing here. I'm a bit like the immigrant, an observer in a country of precise behavior, taking notes and reporting to the homeland.

So I can't take much credit for caring for my mother and stepfather. I love them but there's nothing extraordinary in that. When you are the only sibling without employment or small children, it's your job to step in. And you do it as best as possible, using all your capabilities and resources. I got my reward in being able to do a good job.

Have a lovely weekend. And thank you, again.