indian clothing and car accidents

[chhotii]

I was thinking, the other day, as I took my daily exercise in the form of a walk around Jamaica Pond, how culturally-imposed my ongoing body-size issues are. And not just that our society equates being thin with attractiveness. To some extent, I can tune that out; I look at the fleshless scrawny limbs of fashion models in magazines and I'm revolted, frankly. And it's so obvious that they are all fifteen years old. I don't expect to look like a fifteen-year-old. I would never want to be an unnaturally tall fifteen-year-old girl; wouldn't it be weird to look like one? That's not the culturally-imposed thing that I'm talking about. It's the clothing, which is entirely a cultural artifact. My body is obviously doing well-- stronger than ever-- but the size-6 L.L.Bean jeans, which I bought just a couple of years ago, scream "lard-ass!" if I try to sit down in them. Thus, body-image issues arise from wearing clothing. But doesn't it have to be that way? We have no fur, so we have to have to wear clothes, and clothes have to fit. But I got to thinking about Indian women's clothes. That is a culture that obviously realized a long time ago that women fluctuate in size, and evolved styles of clothing to work around this difficulty. At the extreme, there's the sari-- I don't think that the idea of size even applies to a sari; it's just a big length of cloth that you wrap around. Well, saris are a pain in the ass in other ways, so I wouldn't wear a sari. But then there's the salwar kameez. It's fitted, but generously; loose-fitting pants with a drawstring, with a long loose top over. Not that I've tested this idea, but I think one would have to gain quite a bit of weight before noticing that the salwar kameez is tight. I recall looking at how women were dressed in India and having it suddenly dawn on me that these people don't have distinct maternity outfits separate from their regular clothes.

I used to have a couple of salwar kameez outfits. But after coming back to the States, I felt too culturally out of place when I wore them. In India, where Western styles of dress on women is uncommon, they were fine. If I had black hair and brown skin and those lovely exotic-looking eyes, I could wear them anywhere, with an air of "this is just who I am, you know". But I felt too eccentric wearing such an obviously foreign style of dress...

...but that was before I met all the nice weirdos I know now. Experiences in recent years, such as seeing vicka get married in Doc Martin's with purple laces, have liberated me quite a bit from worrying about appearing eccentric. So, maybe I should try the salwar kameez thing again. (This is not as a cop-out from the fitness crusade; I cannot possibly wear salwar kameez every day, I must continue to somehow figure out how to get jeans to fit. But it would be an occasional day off from dealing with Western clothes that hate me.)

Fortuitously-- or so I thought!-- I got a little prodding in the direction of taking up these ideas again. A second-hand invitation to an Indian-themed party. Said party promises to have good points and bad points. Good points: Indian henna body art, Indian food, Boliwood movies as background noise. Bad points: tons of people I don't know (eep, terror!); and the expectation that guests dress nicely. "Like you were going to a club", the invite says. Now, normally, the idea of dressing up for any event in the winter makes me grumpy. My little black dresses are not warm. And-- wear heels in THAT snow? Heh. But the invite goes on to encourage guests to wear Indian garb, if they have it. Hmmm.

I elicited The Jerk's advice on shopping for Indian clothes. The nicest stuff he knows of is made by a place in Texas... not really an option for getting something on short notice. But there is a place in Burlington mall. Not very spiffy, it seems, but I'm willing to give it a try.

Today was going to be busy. Original plan: drive to Burlington, shop, buy groceries, make aloo parathas until it's time to go to the party, go to the party, go to the other party. I realize that there's a daytime party in Burlington, which also encourages guests to bring food. Revised plan: Buy groceries, prepare some breads and/or spreads, drive to Burlington, hit first party, shop, go home, make aloo parathas... A tight schedule, but perhaps doable. Then, this morning, lying in bed:
Rich: what's making that dripping noise?
Me: Um, snow melting outside?
Rich: No, it's in the house. Coming from that way.
Get up to find water dripping out of the bathroom ceiling, landing mostly (thank god) in the tub but the ceiling is looking really quite unhappy. OK, new plan: Get in touch with landlord, DEAL with bathroom ceiling, buy groceries, prepare breads and/or... uh no, screw that. New plan: Get in touch with landlord, deal with bathroom ceiling. Drive to Burlington, trying not to feel absurd about going all the way out to Burlington without actually attending the event in Burlington; shop, buy groceries, go home, make aloo parathas until it's time to go to the party, go to the party, go to the other party.

Nearly on schedule, there I was, just before exit 32B on the access road, *almost* at Burlington mall. Traffic was heavy but moving at a pretty good pace. Uh, too good. Suddenly traffic in front of me slowed down quite quickly and came to a stop. I tried to do the trick that The Jerk had taught me: Slow down faster than the cars ahead, while watching the car behind in the rear-view mirror, ready to jump forward into the space in front created by slowing down so quickly in case the car behind appears to have trouble slowing down soon enough. Didn't quite work. I managed to create space in front of me. But when I saw how fast the car behind was approaching, and thought "oh geez there's no way they're going to make it," I froze in terror and didn't unfreeze in time to evade. BOOM! In the split-second of impact, I remember observing just how many times I rocked back and forth, and observing things slide around in the car. Funny how time works during a car crash.

I don't have much experience with car accidents. I can't think of any previous instance of being in a car that was rear-ended. I've never been in another accident, where I was the driver, involving another vehicle. The impact felt huge to me. In those initial, completely irrational minutes, I thought that for sure that the back of my car must have been flattened. I didn't want to drive it without checking it out (but was persuaded, reluctantly, to scoot up a bit). I immediately called 911 on my cellphone because isn't that what you do when there's an accident? I was completely shook up. The other driver was much calmer-- more previous experience with accidents, I'm guessing-- and took charge of copying all her info onto a piece of paper for me to take, and copying all my information for her to take. She was strongly of the opinion that we didn't need to stand around for an hour waiting for the state trooper, annoying traffic on the access road. I was kind of suspicious of her motivations on this points, and looked at her like she had six heads...

Until I got out of my car and actually looked at the damage. Or lack thereof. Yay bumpers. It looks like there are vertical scrape marks on the bumper from where her bumper hit and went down. Maybe just dirt marks. I was glad to see that, no, the back of my car wasn't flattened, but a bit embarrassed, after all the fuss I made, that there wasn't even a dent. Realized that if she had been traveling very fast when she hit me, then my car would have moved forward more than it did from the impact. So, no reason to not just drive away.

But not to the mall. Having gotten all shook up like that completely destroyed any remaining ability to cope with the idea of going to the Mall, looking for this shop, and flipping through rack after rack of scary suburban-Indian-lady salwar kameezes. With a "fuck-it" to the mall, I turned right around onto 95S. Found that I was having trouble coping with being behind the steering wheel. I learned to drive late in life and I've never built up a lot of experience with driving, so I always tend to have this nagging feeling that I don't belong in the driver's seat. When I can't get a ride from someone else, I do drive when the feeling of impatience with wanting to get somewhere fast drowns out the I-don't-belong-here feeling. On the way home, I was very much more conscious of all the possibilities for things going wrong (like, duh!), and it made me very jumpy. Stopped at a Bread & Circus for a leisurely lunch to re-fuel myself and work on regaining composure. They had an o.k. salad bar, but no hot chocolate damnit. They did have a Ringel and a Jen shopping there, who got the long answer to "How are you?" Running into friends rivals hot chocolate in restorative power, so driving the rest of the way home was rather less harrowing.

Bought potatoes, but have blown off making aloo paratha. The budget for coping-with-things-today had a couple of unexpected emergency expenditures, and can no longer cover coping with parathas. Or any other cooking that involves handling dough. Andy persuaded me to come out to the party anyway; maybe it will be fun, and that will be good for me. No idea, now, what I'm going to wear. At least I have plenty of ankle bracelets to choose from.

Comments

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

I've been in a couple of minor accidents where I was driving and was struck by another car. Afterwards, despite not really being injured, I felt very shook up and had trouble thinking clearly.

This has happened to me twice, and I also felt very shaken and almost shocky afterward. Maybe it's the sudden realization of how much worse it could have been that does it.

Alex, I'm glad you're okay!