CLASS ANXIETY

My MFA graduation lecture at Bennington College was titled “Class Anxiety in Literature and Writing.” This morning, I was reminded that I am a creature of habit.  

Before we bought our current home, we rented a small house nearby. On most early mornings, you could see me on my lawn, fussing with plants and the Butterfly Bush we planted near the porch, dressed in roughly the same outfit: stressed denim jeans, an old t-shirt, and a permanently stained, faded Williams-Sonoma apron of which I have many. 

Nothing has changed.  I wear the same uniform to this day while working in my yard. 

Once, a few weeks after we moved in, my neighbor came out to mow her lawn, wearing a floor-length gown, pearl necklace, and cowboy boots. After she mowed a few lanes, she waved to me.  I laughed so hard.  She made sure I saw her and got the joke.  We both smiled hard. She was making fun of me–the observant one–and Northerner.  Like many Southern women, she would NEVER, ever get caught in public without wearing a nice outfit. Her hair styled. If she could afford it, a visit to the hair salon weekly.

There’s a big downside to worrying this much about what you wear, especially for women, who are being told to spend thousands of dollars a year on wardrobe clubs just so that they can keep their jobs. That’s what the capitalist machine does: once it figures out what’s going on, it can find a way to keep people needy.

Class markers are an interesting way to define a character, too. In my lecture, I refer to Paul Fussel’s work, which, while it might offend some, is worth reading.

(Photo: Debutante ball in the South.)