74. The costumes

What am I doing? A princess dress and a prince suit. That I sew by hand. Layers of glittering ribbons, bows, plastic pearls, strands of beads, shiny frills and lace, it’s all there, accessories to prettification. Stitch by stitch, the movements of the needle waving their steady flow through the fabric. The thread with each millimeter holding the silk and the velvet together, juxtaposing colors, dream-like images for an enhanced unreal world. The glimmer on the edges of the costumes extending the flares of childish aspirations.

Haven’t been writing for a while, bent every evening on the sewing, my fingers pierced to their blood as if a new kind of ink was needed, a slow steady progression towards an extravagant accomplishment, a form of message made of luminescent textures: To offer you for Christmas the most outstanding clothes to play with. An opportunity to fully pretend. To dance barefoot while meters of satin and decorations float around you like the sails of a fancy ship. Like your own sphere of influence. Sparkling and ennobled by a game of make-believe.

Costumes to fully fantasize yourself, to simulate appearances, to fake your way through demands and life’s exigencies. For at age two and four, what better time to learn about ways to pervade atmospheres? Mastering the fine art of spectacles so to never become their innocent victim – lucid ones being ok I guess. Understanding the powerful nature of the theatre. Playing like dedicated actors, beyond the principles of fun, straight into roles molded after a dynamic textiled text recited with heart and ample gestures testing the seams.

Ornate fringes beaming with light to make you into funambulists able to cross dimensions of time still unheard of. A projection into a future better staged today in case later it never happens. Pulling towards immediacy all that can be, chiffon like vapors of visions adjusting their transparency to allow you to see everything you can conceive.

A gift with my hands. My ten fingers up and down rivers of ribbons, tracing with ornaments lines of whispers on the soft sands of fabric so that shimmering words, forever, remind you of the sound of water all around as you glide on the stage of youth. Swimming at the center of veils and streams of generous translucent jewels. Buoyant and confident. Fluid. Applauding yourself for the floatable spirit you choreograph amid skins of brocade imitation.

I am sewing night after night the allures of a new dramaturgy. The wide skirts and the gauze collars of new characters. The rhythm of new acts. The stellar apparition of untold stories for amphitheaters not yet built. For a public not yet born. For spotlights not yet switched on and for unpainted decors awaiting your steps. Your bodies clad in vertiginous offerings redrawing the meaning of performance. Always for others. Meters of lamé and precise needlepoint for the largesse of your souls. Bestowing on others your happiness. Costumes as a sign of vibrant donations. Abandoning yourself to the swing of attires blown by the breeze of a bright, merry audience. A gift so that in turn you may give. Luminosity for interpretations. Rays of enlightenment along rows of plissé golden strips. Songs for jazzy rainbows stitched on peau de soie, and the privilege to play a nonpareil part in this not-so-comical world. Just for the essence of kindness. And the many outfits it may disguise itself with.

Laolao