Part of my job entails helping students create ensembles for the high school plays. One time we crafted bright green cumberbunds, an accessory that the fifteen years olds had never heard of much less worn. They created little mice out of pompoms and pipe cleaners to attach to the tap dancers' shoes. Girls finished the edges of yellow kerchiefs that identified the citizens of Duloc. One fall we used a fluttering black cloak to transform a perfectly beautiful girl into a minion. There was a costume that was complicated enough that I had to sew the actor in. One boy was dressed as a bishop, even though he has never attended theological school. 

 

There are 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. 

 

Then when the curtain falls for the last time, the costumes come back to rest. Their fling on stage 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?