P is for Pink -- Creative Nonfiction

When we married, my husband had a concrete sense of fashion, especially as it came to colors and patterns appropriate for male attire. Blue, black, gray, white, olive drab, and red. Orange during hunting season.

“I don’t wear plaid,” he told me.

A quick glance through his flannel shirts gave the lie to that statement.

“But these are plaid,” I said.

“No they’re not.”

My husband is easily the smartest man I’ve ever known.

But, it occurred to me that he didn’t know what plaid was. I asked him to show me something plaid. He pointed to my green checked table cloth.

He could diagnose and treat any number of diseases in any number of species. He could identify aircraft from the early days of human flight to stealth fighters. He recognized the trees in the woods and birds on the wing, but designs in fabric were of no interest to him and he paid no attention to them.

My son was twelve years old when Scott came into the family. John had developed his own sense of fashion with very few restrictions from me. And no restrictions at all when it came to color or pattern. I’ve always thought that clothes were one of the few aspects of a child’s life that they could safely control themselves. Within reason of course. If there’s snow on the ground, they should at least wear socks with their sandals.

Early in the marriage, my son came downstairs ready for school. Scott took one look at the boy’s sneakers laced with fluorescent orange laces. Exercising more tact than I ever do, he took me aside and suggested that perhaps John should relace his shoes with something “a different color.” He was genuinely concerned that the other kids would make fun of John. If the other kids made fun of John’s fashion choices, I never heard about it. John continues to dance to his own fashion tunes to this day.

As time went on, Scott and I had a daughter. Grace was born independent and never slowed down. 

She hated the cute little Disney shorts sets I picked out for her and quickly took charge of her own fashion. Being a bit of a drama queen, she had a tendency toward costumes, much to her father’s chagrin. But he loved her anyway and never said much to her about it. He still loves her and still says nothing about her fashion choices.

In spite of the family he found himself in, he continued his own narrow views of what was acceptable for himself. Conservative suits, dress shirts, long ties. Striped shirts were okay as long as the stripes weren’t too wide. No checks. Nothing botanical (unless it looked like camo, and that not for work.) No yellow, purple, or bright green. And definitely no pink.

Then he moved to Colorado. My dad and I didn’t move here for a couple of years, so he was pretty much on his own. When Grace and I visited, I had trouble with the altitude and the low humidity. It was hard for me to breathe and my nose bled. We’ve been up here long enough now that I’ve adjusted. (I still get sick going up Pike’s Peak, but it is so beautiful and they make the best donuts at the summit.)

The thing is, sometime in that first year, he took to wearing bow ties and purchased a pale pink dress shirt. I was so proud.

“Your father is becoming more adventurous, more aware of fashion possibilities,” I bragged to our daughter.

“Mom,” she said in that tone, “he’s just oxygen deprived.”