They call the bandeau tops women can wear underneath low-cut shirts ‘showstoppers.’ Using is one is like putting a black bar across one’s chest. They are perfect for all the adorable triangle-topped tank-tops and dresses women pull out of their closets each summer. If one doesn’t own a showstopper, she can sew a permanent piece of cloth into her clothing. Finding fabric to sew into several dresses was my mission last weekend.
It turns out that in our world of fast food and convenience stores, finding fabric isn’t all that easy. Even Wal-Mart, which used to have a large fabric selection, is in the process of removing fabric from their stores. The Wal-Mart nearest us does not have a fabric section, although they do sell clothes, the employee told me.
The only other place I could think to buy fabric was Jo-Ann Fabrics. I punched the store into my iPhone, and I found there was one several miles away from Wal-Mart. The parking lot was nearly empty, although the Old Navy next door looked busy.
There used to be a Jo-Ann Fabrics in the town in which I grew up. My mom, who stayed home to raise me and my sister, spent a lot of time at Jo-Ann Fabrics. My dad worked hard, and he worked a lot, but we didn’t have a lot of money, and my mom sewed us what she couldn’t find us at garage sales. For Easter one year, she sewed me a black floral-print dress with puffed sleeves. I’d gotten the idea that puffed sleeves were stylish from Anne of Green Gables, not noting that the book was written one hundred years before I was even born. I loved that dress, and it’s always stuck out to me as a physical reminder that my mom loves me. I know a dress that intricate had to have been a lot of work, and I felt like heaven headed to church that Sunday.
I haven’t been in Jo-Ann Fabrics since I was a little girl. And the Jo-Ann Fabrics I headed to last week wasn’t the same Jo-Ann Fabrics I spent time in as a little girl. It wasn’t even in the same state. But I walked into the store and it smelled exactly like childhood. It’s funny how smells can transport you to different places and time periods just as easily as sights.
I was looking for black fabric, but first I found myself standing in front of a deep purple silk. It was exactly the fabric I would have stood in front of as a child. As little girls bored to death with Vogue patterns and yard sticks, my sister and I would peruse the fabrics, touching them and draping them over our heads. I used to imagine fantastic outfits out of purple silks and pink satins. I imagined the full skirts and puffed sleeves and lacy veils and gloves I would wear when my father discovered he was actually ancient Scottish royalty and my sister and I were Scottish princesses who now needed to dress in the finest fabrics Jo-Ann Fabrics of small-town Minnesota had to offer.
I planned the simple green dresses and plaid skirts I would wear to my day job as an English teacher. I dreamed of the red pencil skirts and black cocktail gowns I would wear to the fantastic parties I attended after school where Prince Charming would meet me and hurry away with me to his castle in Monaco. My life would be exactly like the life of Grace Kelly, the beautiful Hollywood actress turned princess.
In a long time, I hadn’t felt so close to childhood as I did standing in the Jo-Ann Fabrics entrance. I actually called my mom to tell her because Jo-Ann Fabrics didn’t feel the same without her.
With my childhood visions of adulthood reincarnated, I left the store thinking how differently life always turns out than how you imagine as a child. Things don’t happen how you imagine, and they don’t often happen how you hope, but they happen, and in some ways my childhood dreams have come true.
Childhood Dream 1: My father discovered he was long-lost Scottish royalty, and my family moved to our castle in Europe (which looked exactly like the Biltmore House we had visited in North Carolina).
This did not happen. My parents remained in the house in which I grew up until after I left for college. Our house was not a castle, and we never even visited Europe. My parents do not have plans to move there, nor do I.
I did, however, write a book based on my real family history. It’s just as messy as the royal family’s history. And it’s just as fascinating. Both of my parents grew up in broken homes, and they were destined to become adults as broken as the ones who raised them. And then, shortly before they met, they both discovered they were long-lost royalty. They belonged to a Kingdom, one with ultimate riches and the ultimate happy ending. They embraced their true identity, and I grew up knowing I was more than the sum of my parts. I belonged to the Kingdom.
Childhood Dream 2: I grew up to be an English teacher in a small town with pupils as charming as the students Anne of Green Gables taught.
I am not an English teacher. But I do write, and I hope my words inspire you more than if I spent my blog posts teaching you the parts of speech. And my husband will tell you that I do spend an awful lot of time correcting other people’s grammar, so maybe, in some small way, I am an English teacher.
Childhood Dream 3: I spend my evenings at fabulous parties.
I rarely go to fabulous parties. And the last two times I went to nightclubs, I found myself appalled at the behavior of young people these days. Everything was so much different in 2001 when I was frequenting night clubs. People were decent then (no, they weren’t; I know that). I go to friend’s houses and movies. I spend my evenings watching TV, folding laundry, and reading e-mails.
I recently did, however, attend a ball. I got to wear a beautiful new dress and dark lipstick. There was dinner and dancing and beautiful people. I went with a friend, and the party was fabulous.
I no longer define fabulous as the atmosphere, although I don’t think I did as a child either because the fabulous parties I attended in my fantasies were always attended by my little sister and Kristen and Joel, our best friends, and my parents. I suppose I’ve realized what makes life fabulous.
Childhood Dream 4: Prince Charming.
By the time I was frequenting Jo-Ann Fabrics, I had seen enough Disney movies to know that no princess was complete without a prince. My prince is not really a prince. He does not walk around in a white suit, and I don’t wander our house in sparkly blue silk. He did not pull me out of a deep sleep, rescue me from a poison apple, or save me from evil stepsisters. He has, however, saved the day many times, he is nearly always charming, and he has brought me more than one pair of shoes that would put Cinderella’s glass slippers to shame. And as I’m writing, I’m tempted to put on the tiara I bought for our wedding day. This princess couldn’t imagine life without her prince charming.
Childhood Dream 5: A stylish wardrobe with the most expensive, jewel-tones, sparkly, shiny fabric Jo-Ann Fabrics carries.
I don’t shop at Jo-Ann Fabrics. I don’t own a sewing machine. I shop at the mall, and I can barely sew on a button. I do, however, believe I have a stylish wardrobe. I have plenty of jewel-tones. I have lots of things that sparkle and shine. As I write, I am wearing a pink t-shirt with Barbie screen printed on it and a sparkly black vest (and no, I didn’t plan that; I just decided I wanted to wear it today). My idea of the perfect outfit may no longer include a dress with a full pink skirt, a diamond-studded bodice, and cap sleeves…on second thought, that still sounds pretty great. Mom, are you up for another sewing project?
I hadn’t gone into Jo-Ann Fabrics that day looking for fabric that my personal seamstress could sew into a Cinderella gown for the royal ball I was attending that weekend. I had gone in for black fabric. But when I left, I knew: no matter what happens, or how it happens, or how long it takes to happen, or how many obstacles stand in the way, I will live happily ever after. After all, I already have.
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