Part of my job entails helping students create ensembles for the high school plays. For Alice in Wonderland I went hunting through the collection for appropriate attire for those inappropriate characters who go around disappearing and cheating at crochet. One time we used a fluttering black cloak to transform a perfectly beautiful girl into a minion. Another year there was a costume that was complicated enough that I actually had to sew the actor in. . 

 

There are already a huge array of costumes in the storage closet. Fifty two pairs of knickers. Sixty three blue ball gowns. Enough sweeping capes for the British Parliament. Shelves full of boots, heels, flats, sandals, and slippers. Each time there is a production a team arrives to pull just the right bodices, petticoats, and mob caps to transform ordinary folks into royalty or peasants. Sometimes characters play both in the same act. 

 

This time there are the constraints of the pandemic, which necessitates delivering dresses and beards to students, without being able to see if they fit. When they don't, I rummage some more and go back again. Fortunately many live close to me.

 

The play itself will be recorded on zoom, and projected on a large screen in the theater's parking lot. People will watch from their cars like a drive in movie, and listen on their radios. 

 

Then when the audience drives away, the costumes will come back to rest. Their fling in the spotlight is over, and they slip back onto wire hangars to sleep. 

 

One of the spiritual growth tasks I am implementing is the notion that emotions are something I wear. They are not a permanent part of who I am. Sometimes I even portray indignation and contentment on the same day. When I fall for the illusion that anger is stuck to me with no possibility of change, I forget that there is a zipper. I relinquish my freedom to evolve.

 

Where is the fun in that?