Of Pastries & Pantyhose

When the only goal is to wander without a goal, who are you, really?

Honestly, it was pathetic. Two grown women, priding themselves in their low maintenance, tomboy ease, spin cycling through what to wear. What to wear to simply cross the plaza for the day’s first coffee and pastry. Add on the miles we walked debating the evening outfits, to be adorned for the exact same activities - walking, talking, and eating - and well, let us just state that whoever overheard us that week must have clearly thought we had lost our minds.

The reality is, though, that we had. In the years prior, we had separately grieved and birthed, moved and settled, contracted and grown. We had messy breakups and exalting victories. Tough conversations and middle of the night introspections. With each wave, we thought we were someone new, someone…other. Someone we would have to get to know. And given what we realized last week - dress.

As I looked at the clothes strewn across the hotel room, only to end up in exactly what I have always felt most ‘me’ wearing, I realized that there was no ‘new me;’ it was just, and has always been - me. The me that roamed these streets as a child, obsessed with becoming fluent in their language and ways. The me who returned as a student, an intern, a banker, an entrepreneur. A daughter, a friend, a wife, a colleague, a mother. The me somewhere underneath slathered layers of sunblock, now caked on, begging to be scraped clean.

It was time. Time to shed all those personas I took on, and thought I had to become. Shed the preconceived notions and perceptions, definitions and categorizations. Shed old fears and face new challenges.

I am not sure why, but as a society we tend to relish in defining life’s most precious and arduous moments as creators of a new identity, rather than inspiration for a new chapter in the same novel. The novel that we get to write, live, feel, breathe….and remember. The pages only we can turn, and punctuation only we hold the pen to add.

In the words of Antonio Machado:

Caminante, son tus huellas el camino y nada más. Caminante no hay camino, se hace el camino al andar. Al andar se hace el camino, [porque] caminante, no hay camino sino estelas en la mar.

Traveler, your footprints are the only road, nothing else. Traveler there is no road, you make your own road as you walk. As you walk, you make your own road, [because] traveler there is no road, only the ship’s wake in the sea.

There I was, a traveler, as I had always been, and will always be. So I threw on some kicks and a miniskirt and walked out the door. Simple, basic, pure. Me.