Playing Dress-Up

This will be my third weekend in a row dressing up for Locust Grove. Two weeks ago, the girls and I were in character for the grand re-opening of the house after its remodel. Last weekend, Emily and I were in character for the free Fourth of July festivities. This weekend is the Jane Austen Festival, and I'm in the style show.

All of this got me to wondering, "What does it say about me that I dress up in Regency Era clothes and pretend to be someone else? What must 'regular' people think of my weird hobby?" If I look at myself from an outsider's point of view, I think I seem pretty odd! To me, it's totally normal to do this. I love the theatrical part of it. I love pretending to be someone I'm not, living in a time that is totally foreign to today, thinking on my feet and pulling it off. It is a big rush for me. Whenever someone comes in to my room and engages me in conversation, I feel a surge of adrenaline and my neurons start firing, and I'm "on."

But then I look at the folks who attend the Jane Austen Festival, say, with a different lens. I think they are odd because they dress up for fun and fun alone. I find myself putting me on a higher, less-weird plane because I do it for a reason (or so I tell myself). I reenact to teach and inform and educate others about life in the olden days and about the Clarks and the Croghans and life in Louisville 200 years ago. These JA fans are just weird grown ladies parading around the grounds of Locust Grove as if they were living there.

They are not much different than the men who dress in Revolutionary War or Civil War clothes and pretend to do battle. But really they are not so different from folks who dress like pirates or gangsters at Halloween and play like they are someone else.

I guess all of us, if we'd admit it, have a secret desire to dress up and become another version of ourselves. To escape from the stresses of today and slip back into the days when things seemed easier, slower, more relaxed. It's the lucky one of us who actually puts on the costumes and caters to our inner child who cries out, "Let's play!"