I hated pink, Baby pink, frilly, girlie, wimpy pink. Pastels were insipid and pointless. Give me royal blue, deep grape, forest green, fire engine red, lemon yellow, black. Yes, all my crayons were broken as I tried to get more intensity on the pages of my coloring books. Crayola was not great for this. My mother, born in 1925, and her mother in 1890, had clear ideas about what little girls wore, which is to say, well, not black! I was put in frilly pink bonnets, bald baby that I was, and still was seen as a little boy- which drove my mother up the wall. I would not be best pleased at being called a boy when I was pre-adolescent, with long hair down my back. But I would refuse to wear pink absolutely.
I had to wear a bright pink skirt for a ballet recital when I was about eight, somehow this intense pink was not so bad, flowing without being fussy. Mostly we just enjoyed running around Cobo Hall's Christmas Festival, there was an amazing number of displays that a kid could climb on, slide down, roll around on. A truly magical day, wearing (?) pink.
I would be 27 before I bought anything pink, and it was a dark, intense pink shirt, with an abstract jazz dance image on the back. I was in San Antonio in the Army, and I would be mocked for the extravagance of it. But I felt bold and the color, yeah-I'm-pink-you-got-something-to-say-about-that?-Pink, Screw-you-Pink, fit my attitude, and buoyed me up. It would be lost, I do not know where. But the feeling of it stays with me.
I wear some fuchsia - a few t-shirts. Dark and brooding pink I think of it. But it really is not best for me. I have that color rug under my feet now, though.
Dulan has a friend who loves all things pink. She loves Hello Kitty! She wears pink patterned tights. She is cute. She went to the abortion rights demonstration in D.C., wants to be a civil rights lawyer. She is brilliant, and funny and capable. I do not know how she does it, but she makes cute cool. Even baby, frilly, girlie pink. I admire her, and I am coming to terms with pink.
As long as I never have to wear any frilly, baby pink. Unless perhaps as a small accent to all black. I can adjust. I can be a little pink.
4 comments:
I have one pink shirt - tight, translucent and trimmed in black lace - which I pair with black clothing only. It is neither cute nor girlie, and I like it.
Well, FINE then.
My kids say that pink is not my color. I wear my one pink t-shirt to exercise in, at home.
Fushia though,definately is. People reacte to Carol in fushia. All of the clothes I have in this color are now worn out.
I have nothing against pink; I love the sweetness of the baby picture I have of me in pink.
Every time the subject of pink comes up, I think of you Zhoen.
And believe it or not, it has come up. Ha, isn't it?
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