Life's Masquerade

On the costumes we share, and the ones we leave behind

Last weekend, I introduced myself to myself at a party.

She was dressed in one of my favorite Burning Man costumes, a neon intergalactic suit with an alien on one kimono wing and the earth on another that a friend had made for me in Brazil. My height, my previous haircut. She introduced herself to me, and I stumbled, unclear of how to meet a stranger in something so personal to me.

It took me a minute to recover. She had no idea who I was, but her outfit gave her a familiarity that I couldn’t explain, as if she absorbed a piece of me from wearing my costume.

As I politely excused myself to go dance between the canyon rocks of my friends’ property under a star-filled sky, I realized that this is what death must feel like. A slow fade out of your life as other people slowly fade in, your home occupied by someone new. The walls painted. Your favorite tree cut down.

And by the same lens, this is life at its most full. I had brought several clothing trunks to share with the birthday boy, Timo, and his wife, Samantha, who asked me for nothing but costumes. Fashion has always been a passion, a private one I’ve spent years dismissing as frivolous. I spent my high school years backstage sewing ballgowns for plays, and I never lost the belief that fashion can be the deepest form of expression, that what you wear is who you’ve decided to be. I’ve spent years curating my Burning Man ones to be the deepest representation of my most playful self. My trunks overflowed with hot pink, butterflies, kimonos, headdresses, and wigs, all chosen to blaze against the white playa so that, as I sped across it on my bike, I looked as if I were flying.

I had brought dozens of options, unsure of what they wanted, and rather than just settling on one look, we decided to open up the trunk to the full party and encourage costume changes throughout the day and night.

As I walked down the streets of Santa Barbara with my friends clad in my clothes, I was surrounded by different versions of me, of the most whimsical and joyous me. I wore wigs for the first time since losing my hair and felt more like me than I have in months, a blonde Sailor Moon wig during the day and a red bob at night. We walked and danced and sang and snuggled, each of us another ripple moving outward.

Life from that lens is nothing more than meeting different versions of yourself at a party, each introduction and connection a mirror angled to see a new dimension, a new door opening on who you could be and how you can show up in the world. We search for those who share our energy, those who wear our clothes. And as we pass, and our clothes move on, our interactions carry an inexplicable familiarity. We’ve been here before, we’ve seen this before. In the end and in the beginning, we are all dust.

On my drive down to Santa Barbara, I met myself in the baby girl who shares my name, haircut, and intense curiosity. I felt the deepest form of love, of recognition, as I did dancing with Samantha amid the rocks as she wore my butterfly pants and a sequin butterfly top. I saw myself, but I also saw more, our lives a woven constellation of unique experiences, each star brightening the dark night.

For the last few weeks, my back, legs, and ankles have been in unrelenting pain. I’ve lost sensation in my feet from the chemotherapy, but to keep my strength up, I’ve been walking for miles a day. “The answer is obvious from the outside,” a friend who is a bodyworker said as he lined up my feet as I lay on a massage table. “Your toes are off the ground. Your walk is mirroring your desire to dig your heels into the ground to stay. Instead of fighting and pushing in, what if you imagine the earth was coming up to meet you instead?”

I thanked him and walked outside, suddenly aware of how much weight I had been carrying. Walk on air against your better judgment, said Seamus Heaney’s gravestone. I spiraled around dancing with echoes of myself, each one temporary, my footsteps growing lighter and lighter in the dust.

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Thank you so much for reading! Sending you all of my love. Thank you, as always, for reading and for sharing my words. My website with more of my writing is here.

I’d love to hear from you all; it makes my week! Who have you recognized yourself in lately? What clothes represent you? Is there a piece that makes you feel uniquely you?

Love,
Lou