Feminine
I’m Not Sure That You Even Care About This
Thoughts from someone who lived in the Northeast most of her life.
“Southern women are always so prim and proper.”
Or so I thought.
Growing up in Massachusetts, living in Niagara Falls, New York, and then Williston, Vermont I was used to cold weather. It did not phase me to drive in snow or ice.
I knew to dress in layers and wear the appropriate footwear and have emergency clothing backups in the car because the weather changed fast and frequently.
I had my winter hat, gloves, and scarf packed away in the side pocket of my vehicle.
Most of my clothing consisted of pants, first layer tops, and a second layer of a sweater, vest or sweatshirt. In the extremely short summers, we moved to wearing shorts, but made sure to still have a long sleeve or light jacket ready.
Dresses were for weddings and funerals and graduations and surprise parties.
My experience of southern women had been through Hollywood, and in romance novels, and there, women of the South always wore dresses and their make up was done perfectly. They had fancy big hats and carried fans. These were the southern belles, who were expected to grow up to be ladies.
I thought it was more of a cultural thing. I thought perhaps that’s the way each of girl’s mothers raised them.
Up north, I didn’t know anyone who had a coming of age party or a sweet 16 party or a debutante ball.
We were matter-of-fact people. Get the job done people. Dress for success or dress for a purpose people.
I didn’t want to be a lady. I wanted to go out for adventures. Clothes never meant much to me except for being utilitarian.
But then I moved to Florida.
I find almost seven out of seven days I’m wearing a dress.
I didn’t recognize this about myself until a friend recently moved to Florida. She was at my apartment when I received a shipment of a few new dresses.
She told me she had brought mostly pants, tops and a couple pairs of shorts. She was circulating through the couple of pairs of shorts having just moved here not sure of what she wanted to do.
She commented, “I notice you mostly wear dresses.”
I was initially ready to deny. And then I thought about it. The first year I was here — because I had not acclimated to the warmer weather, had spent thousands on the move and shorts were in my wardrobe, I wore short sleeve shirts and shorts. I made do. But man, I was hot in June and July.
I explained to her that I noticed during the second year when I had acclimated a bit more and wore shorts and a top there was a noticeable lack of air circulation and I felt warmer than when I wore my beach cover-up.
That knowledge is what set me off into buying simple cotton dresses.
When I wear my one piece dresses, air circulation can come up the dress over my middle and out the top.
So it’s more a matter of dressing for the environment and being comfortable than it is for being gussied up.
That was my eye-opener.
Well, my supposition about Southern women in general was wrong. There you go. I said it.
I don’t doubt that parts of the southeast lean toward the old-fashioned ways of society and protocol in the way they dress and apply their make up and how they speak to each other. I just don’t think that is the norm.
So thank you Southern gals, for not only looking beautiful, but also doing the practical thing. I am much cooler wearing a dress than I am wearing shorts and a top. I am much more comfortable — except perhaps when the wind blows.
And you know something else, I feel more feminine and perhaps even a bit more pretty.
There’s a certain elegance to wearing a wide brim hat that brings one back to finer times.
And it’s purposeful in that it protects your face and neck and shoulders from the sun.
And we can all use a little bit more of feeling beautiful and deploying smart skin care, can’t we?
