Raiment

W.S. Merwin is coming to town in November (I guess people who live in Hawaii need to be reminded of why), and he's giving a reading. There was a community-wide book giveaway, and so along with everyone else who got to the farmer's market early enough, my family got a copy of his volume The Shadow of Sirius, which has many good poems that I intend to share with you over the next month or so. The one for today is entitled "Raiment" and it comes first because I've been thinking about a comment on my post about Daddy-Long-Legs--that the main character, Jerusha, seems, to one person at least, unduly focused on appearance (the words used were "shallow and frivolous").

I think that whether one appears frivolous to others depends largely on the self-image (and perhaps the mood) of the person looking. And self-image is something I've been thinking about lately as I continue to recover from years of sedentary work, commuting and over-eating.

As I was on my way to do an errand this morning, I had the thought that my body is getting closer to what my mental picture of it is like. When a woman gets to be a habitual over-eater, her ability to see herself as she really is diminishes. Often she only looks at herself in parts, never full-length and all at once. It takes something like seeing herself in a photograph to bring it home to the over-eater just how divergent her internal image of her self is from the outer image.

This summer, while we were on vacation at the beach, an old friend was sitting with me, watching people walk by; at one point he gestured toward a very tall, thin, and regal-looking older woman and said to me “that’s what you’ll look like when you’re old.” He understood that the way I looked right then was not the way I felt inside. His remark is still giving me the strength to bring my physical self more in line with my mental image of myself. I may never get all the way there; but the closer I get, the more like myself I feel.

In the same way, I think, the urge to distinguish yourself with clothing can be the opposite of frivolous. Read the poem and see what you think:

Believing comes after
there were coverings
who can believe
that we were born without them
he she or it wailing
back the first breath
from a stark reflection
raw and upside-down
early but already
not original

into the last days
and then some way past them
the body that we
are assured is more
than what covers it
is kept covered
out of habit which
is a word for dress
out of custom
which is an alteration
of the older word costume
out of decency
which is handed down
from a word for what
is fitting

apparently we believe
in the words
and through them
but we long beyond them
for what is unseen
what remains out of reach
what is kept covered
with colors and sizes
we hunger
for what is undoubted yet dubious
known to be different
and our fabrics tell
of difference
we dress in difference
calling it ours

I love the way Merwin uses the word "apparently" and the phrase "what is unseen," with their connotations of the intellect.

I've never believed that being an intelligent woman means you don't care what you look like. (Maureen Dowd might argue that such an attitude has developed in opposition to ignorance as chic.) It seems to me that the way pop culture stars like Lady Gaga are manipulating their audiences' ideas about what is "fitting" (the meat dress) might be a sign that we're emerging from the long, dark night of the soul to which no one wears formal dress because "things like that don't matter."

They do matter, and smart people shouldn't be ashamed to demonstrate that they know it.