Re-imaging? There is only one thing that re-imaging brings to mind for me, no, scratch that there’s two – the first one is/was/always will be the dreaded concept of ‘image class’. If any among you have ever been to any kind of theatrical or dance speciality school, or were with me through my own time at HTS, you will well remember the dread that such a phrase can put in your stomach. Image class was the catalyst for completely changing the outside of who I was – note, not the inside, that came later – and as painful as it was I’m grateful for it.
The second is that well…your ‘image’ is always, and should always be, changing…because you are. The day you stop changing you’re dead, and no one wants to be that while they are still alive.
But I digress…
When I went after my theatre masters (because that’s what it is, despite the fact that it’s official name is Post-Graduate Diploma) I was in many ways still very much a kid. I hadn’t really updated my wardrobe in my five years as an undergrad, and if I owned an umbrella well – it definitely wasn’t the sleek kind that fits in your purse. The luggage I travelled with was the same luggage my family had travelled to California with years earlier, and the zipper on my purse was long since broken and probably held together with a safety pin.
I remember getting off the plane in Heathrow for the auditions, wide-eyed and lost at 25…with a massive Bloch dance carry on over my shoulder that contained everything that at that point was of worldly value to me (read: two changes of clothes, 7 pairs of dance shoes, four folders of sheet music, one set of juggling balls, and my legal documentation for the week of auditions ahead of me…you can see where my priorities lay at that point in my life). I’d been travelling for 12 hours, dishevelled, exhausted and nearly in tears, I shouldn’t have been at all surprised when the perpetually angry customs agents mistook me for a minor.
I tended to go from one extreme to the other at that point, seemingly condemned to look like a teenager or like a university professor. Image class slaughtered that perception, forcing me to ditch the out-of-date clothes I’d grown so used to and opt for being nearly in fashion for the first time in my life. The 80s were back in England then, and in a big way, so I went from pinstripe skirts and knit pullovers to leggings, ankle boots and belted jumpers – a look that suited me and which I’ve never completely left behind since, though I’ve learned to find the balance. These days, I look my age, sometimes slightly younger, very seldom older. I’ve grown into myself.
Since coming to ships, I’ve also upgraded the ‘essentials’ – my luggage is now the hard sided designer type, printed with a massive world map – which gets compliments at the airport. My umbrella is a cute black and purple one that folds up and slides neatly into my shoulder bag.
Which brings me of course, to the laptop bag itself, which has nearly replaced the necessity of a purse (though I still have one of those by habit), when I first acquired it the bag was plain blue and black with the company logo embroidered on the front. My gift as a new hire, it was handed over to me by the HRM on my very first day of my very first ship (well okay, maybe not my first day, but within the first week). I instantly was bored with it and saw it as a chance to make something unique. So I did. These days that bag is the equivalent of a visual passport: covered in sew-on patches representing everywhere from Alaska to Antarctica and Jordon to Honolulu. It gets comments in shops world-wide, from airport security guards, from kids on the streets in Italy, the customs agents in Fort Lauderdale call me ‘Patches’. I am exceptionally proud of it.
Have you really been to all those places? People ask me?
Damn rights I have….