Papagallo Pants

Here' s a little proof that my (re)indoctrination into the Outfitting of East Texas Womanhood is near complete. I almost bought lime green pants for my birthday.

LIME. GREEN. PANTS!

Before I get too wound up, I should explain. I LOVE Texas women; glad to be one of 'em. We're cool chicks, for sure. We're big-hearted and spunky. We know how to get things done. We have, um, a certain flair for the dramatic. But that's where things also go a little wonky because -- yes, it's true -- we wear some crazy, crazy things with way too many accessories and let that visual buffet pass for style.

Even worse, we regard as truly tasteful a whole category of clothing that walks the wonky line. These aren't the openly gaudy clothes (which, really, I find admirable for their honesty if nothing else. Their wearers want to be noticed, so they make it impossible for people to look elsewhere). No, no. These are the matchy-matchy kind of clothes that employ very specific color combinations, cuts or embellishments like expiration dates. They announce to the world when they were purchased and for what purpose. They aren't timeless. They do not blend. They do not transition. And, somehow, in East Texas, they are THE LOOK. Oh, how I have struggled to maintain sanity and some semblance of belonging in the face of THE LOOK!

When we first moved to this city, it was late spring. I felt vaguely out of place but couldn't put my finger on why. I thought it was my poor sense of direction. Then we started church shopping and therein my true "otherness" was revealed.

I would dress myself up every Sunday, recycling my best pencil skirt with a different black top and the same, seasonless pair of strappy black sandals. Oh, did I think I looked chic! But no compliments, ever, here in the Social Niceities Capital of North America. After about the third congregation, it hit me: No other women were wearing black sweaters. Certainly not SOLID black. (Sharp inhale!) I was OUT OF SEASON. Out of date! (Ack! Most definitely out of state!)

As anyone can tell ya', true East Texas women sport beachy prints and sherbet-colored cardigans and impractically colored sandals in the summertime. They carry straw handbags or appliqued ones that coordinate with everything else they're wearing. They THEME ACCORDING TO SEASON. Black is blah and simply will not do in the time of pool parties (which spur many toward turquoise tones) or, depending upon one's Protestant denomination, margaritas (think: citris shades!).*

*A corollary for 2006: When paired with white pants and, lately, chunky white beads, black does become an acceptable summer color. Sleeves should be cap or absent, however, and a measure of lace, ribbon or crochet is preferable.

A couple years later, as I've now observed several cycles in the ebb and flow of body-adorning textiles, I believe our local customs have some practical basis. Varying color palette by season may simply be a calendar-marking mechanism necessitated by the (blankety blank) heat. As it seems to be summertime 3/4 of the year, how else might we know it's fall but that our sandals are brown, not pink, and our capri pants now include autumnal shades?

Back then, however, I was just confounded by the clothes. Where, oh, where, were the other women buying these clothes? Leaving aside my qualms over actually paying for them, I didn't know where to find something with grosgain ribbon trim or an all-over motif of embroidered flip-flops. Then I discovered Stein Mart -- my town's go-to source for all things trendy and frou frou and a bit overdone (oh so THE LOOK!). It was like touching the Rosetta stone.

...I'm serious here! This isn't ONLY about bold prints and eyelash fringe and tangerine boucle blazers. Stein Mart is much more. A bridge between cultures. A point of revelation! The key to speaking a distant language. Here is a retail center that consistently stocks enough of my I-hope-classy-but-possibly-just-drab preferences (brown/ white/ khaki/ black/ blue/ no prints) that it welcomes me inside. Then it dangles so many shiny and sparkly objects NOT of my own style that I am distracted... weakened... bewitched... and finally compelled to grab an armful & try on for size. Oh, I don't often buy. But I do try. And I try. And, by repeated exposure, I've been reacclimated to the wide world of color and pattern my compatriots so perfer.

Mostly, this change is a good thing. Over time, I've added some shades of party punch and after-dinner mints to my closet. Picked up a few pair of clearance sandals in colors that limit their usage. Collected handbags that can't be carried year-round. I've worn all these things and lost any self-consciousness about them. I think they add something nice and feminine to the classics.

Now, I sometimes still do picture myself as the plain brown wren in a family of plumed pheasants. But I believe that has more to do with my extended female relatives than with me. Can I help it if they are all singularly gifted in the Ways of THE LOOK? I'm doing pretty well for an ordinary person, and while it's possible I may have hung at the back of their pack before my 8-year hiatus out of state, I have permanently moved on and there is NO WAY now that I can keep pace with their polished, practiced, professional-grade Texas dressing.

And that (oh, yes! finally!) brings me to the pants. All growing things can be trained, you see. Shaped by environment and circumstance to bend a certain way. I've been reshaping myself, bit by little bit, since I came home in 2001. Like a crooked tree, I bent one way first in life, and now I've bent another. But every living thing eventually hits the limits of adaptation. Earlier this month, when I found myself in my beloved Stein Mart, holding a $12 pair of Papagallo lime green capri pants, I knew I had finally reached the end of mine.

They were cute pants. Just 12 bucks, did I mention? Ah, and a name brand, too. I could almost see myself wearing them with an embroidered V-neck tee and floral slides; they would be just right for a summertime girl's night out or... but no. They were truly lime green in color. I know me, and I know I'm not the kind of girl who wears lime green pants.

Not in a house; not with a mouse. Not in a box; not with a fox. I do not wear the lime green pants! I do not give lime green a chance. I do not find this shade my friend. I cannot wear it to fit in. I love when my clothes have some Texas flair. But I've drawn the line -- and I hold it RIGHT THERE.

...Can I get an Amen on that?