Uniform

Uniform.  Same.  Or perhaps all alike but not the same.  Uniformity is not conformity.  No it is certainly not.

Do we become the thing we wear?  Or do we wear a thing because of what we have become?  Do we rise to the standard of our uniform?  Or choose it because we have already achieved a certain standard?  A sameness.  Does your uniform say who you are?  Or do you say who you are by the uniform you choose? 

 

I’m not resolved on my idea this week…and this is possibly certainly why my essay is 5 days late.  I was overwhelmed by references to uniforms this week.  I kept changing my mind about what I thought.  Where to start?  How to finish?

So…a story of two pilots as a start.  And then a bit of a rant.  Because they really do seem to be about the same thing. 

The first time I met my sister’s husband, he was in his uniform…his flight suit…a bag, I believe they call it.  He was instantly US Airforce, badass fighter pilot, Maverick and Goose (and yes, I know they were Marines), academy and polish, and all the other bits rolled into one.  He was only his uniform because I didn’t know him.  He has spent the last 13 years becoming something else to me.  Husband, father, Christian, grill master, late night beer runner, boater, Wolverine fan (yuck), and all the other bits rolled into one.  It’s kind of wild how he started as a uniform and became something else.

The first time I met my friend Tammy she was sitting cross legged on the floor of a Community Ed center where our two youngest children were attending a Mommy and Me class.  Dressed to the nines in sparkly coral wedges and this flashy yellow raincoat she was instantly classy and polished, mommy of boys and caring parent (I mean she was on the floor after all), and all the other bits rolled into one.  That’s what she was when I met her and since then she has added foodie, mother of a daughter, fun wife, power shopper and master party host to her list of designations.  Well, last Monday she came around the corner in the hallway of her very sparkly home in her other uniform.  Her pilot’s uniform.  Pressed and buttoned up.  Gold bars and shiny buttons.  I just kept staring at her.  I was trying to be covert…but there was staring.  It was wild how she started out as one thing to me and instantly became something else.  She was really that thing all along. 

Do we become the thing we wear?  Or do we wear a thing because of what we have become? 

   

I don’t wear a uniform to do my job…but I do have standards.  Of dress.  And grooming.  And behavior.  I was ranting just the other day about a fellow shopper in my local grocery store.  It was 10am on a Tuesday and she was there with her two children so presumably she was in the first shift of her very noble job as a SAHM.  (That’s Stay At Home Mom for you uninitiated.)  Grocery cart full of produce.  Reasonably well behaved urchins.  Coupon accordion file opened in the cart.  Nice.  However, this rant was about the fact that this woman was in her pajamas.  She felt that it was appropriate to go to work on this particular Tuesday bra-less in a lacy tank top, fleece pants with pink monkeys on them, fuzzy slippers and a scrunchie.  This.  I.  Do.  Not.  Understand.  She was out of uniform.  We SAHMs don’t even have a uniform!  But if we did, this would not be it!

Do we become the thing we wear?  Or do we wear a thing because of what we have become?  Do we rise to the standard of our uniform?  Or choose it because we have already achieved a certain standard?  A sameness.  Does your uniform say who you are?  Or do you say who you are by the uniform you choose? 

I do not know.