Tutus don't grow on trees

Ok, so, you know how the Adult Beginner went to school for costumes, right?
Well, right beside the costume shop where I had the huge majority of my classes plus twenty hours each week where we built the costumes for the drama school productions, and the opera school productions, and the occasional film project,
right beside our shop was the Professional Dance Costume Shop where they made all the get-ups for the school of dance.
And by Professional, I mean No Student Workers. Believe me. I tried. Tried to do my work-study in there and they were all like Girl, get up outta here! Forget ‘chu!
I mean, it was nothing personal, just that people in my department were notorious for suddenly getting assigned to wardrobe crew and having absolutely zero free time and bailing on their work-studies.
But anyway.
O yeah, so, one of my favorite memories of school:
Some sunny days in winter, the dance shop ladies would hang freshly-washed, un-tacked tutus upsidedown from the tree outside our doors. Like, to dry in the fresh air.
So you’d be bustling to class, head all full of worry about upcoming papers and getting your sketches in on time, and what order you should do that tricky tailoring project and which stitcher would be best for that hem you’ve got to get done today and can you trust them to do it by machine without fucking it up or are you gonna have to let them spend the entire four hours sewing the hem by hand and how are you gonna get all your homework done when you just suddenly got assigned to head that wardrobe crew and you might have to bail on your work study-
And you look up and there’s this barren winter tree suddenly all bloomed-up with these fluffy fluffy fluffy bright yellow upside-down tutus and it just totally makes you stop and smile.

About these ads