This isn’t the first time I’ve written about my underwear.
In Post 2 of The Imposition Tour on this very blog, I mention a pair of my polka-dot panties. But actually, the other time — other than this time — that I mention my underwear was on the very first blog I attempted to write about five or six years ago. I never did get that blog going — maybe because I wasn’t as open about sharing things as I am now.
Says the woman who keeps writing about her undies!
But I wanted to acknowledge that I’ve written about this incident before, and mention the fact that it’s followed me around since the fifth grade! It’s a story about a defining moment in my life that always helps me remember exactly who I am — and who I think I’ll always be.
It was 1981, and I was about to turn 10. My parents and my sister were already at the kitchen table eating breakfast, and I was gearing up for a fashion show. I was excited to see what my family thought of the outfit I’d picked out for the first day of school. I’ve always had an off-beat sense of style, I suppose, but looking back on this time in my life, I’m sincerely baffled by my love of knickers.
They’re kind of like long shorts, but they have these cuffs that the sort of clip around your knees, creating an awkward — and quite frankly, unfortunate-looking bubble shape over the thighs and hips, while making your calves look quite stumpy in the process.
All I can say is that I think I was going through a strange Little Lord Fauntleroy phase or something, because for some reason, I was pretty obsessed with wearing knickers that year. (I blame it on Ricky Schroder for being so darn dreamy in the made-for-TV-movie about the golden little lord…) But I was particularly giddy about my “first-day-of-school knickers” because my mom made them for me, and I got to pick out the fabric she used.
It was this thin, light-weight linen that was the most perfect shade of pale pink.
As I was prepping in my bedroom for my one-woman runway show, I had this fleeting wonder cross my mind. Along with my homemade knickers and my other store-bought school clothes, my mom also got me a bunch of new undies with funny animals and days of the week printed on them. I had on one of the cutest pairs in the pack that morning — they had tiny little green frogs with pink bows on their heads all over them. But as I was fastening my knee cuffs, I wondered if you could see the frogs through the fabric of my knickers?
Hmm…
But I remember like it was yesterday how I strutted into the kitchen, rocking my look — complete with a cute white linen shirt with a Peter Pan collar and pink satin ribbon, my white cable-knit knee socks, and my sky-blue suede Earth shoes. My dad didn’t seem too impressed, and my sister was a little crabby (she was starting junior high), but my mom was all smiles. I did a little twirl in front of her, and then I stopped so my back was to her. Then I pushed out my hip and said, “Can you see my frog panties through these knickers?”
I vividly remember all three of my family members looking up and then glancing at my bum. My dad went back to his eggs, and my sister ate another bite of her toast, while my mom looked at me with a strange expression on her face. Finally, she said, “You look really nice, Sonja.” That was good enough for me!
But even before I had fully moved my new school supplies into my tote tray at school, some of my crummy classmates had started making frog sounds behind my back, and saying, “Ribbit” whenever I walked by. Clearly, the knickers were see-through, and it was going to be a long day. When I finally got home from school, my mom was there, and she had made a batch of chocolate chip cookies to welcome us home. I felt kind of miffed at her for not telling me the truth about my panties, but I didn’t know what to say.
But my mom did.
She followed me into my bedroom and sat down on my bed with me. When I started to cry, she cradled me in her arms. She said, “Oh, Sonja… I’m so sorry. I’ve been thinking about you all day and feeling so sad that I didn’t say anything about your knickers and panties. It’s just you were so excited to wear them… But all day, I kept worrying about the kind of day you were having, and I’m so sorry.”
When I dried my tears, I only had one question for my mom: “Why didn’t you tell me?”
My mom squared my shoulders and looked me directly in the eyes, and then she asked me a question in return:
“Would you have changed anything if I did?”
Instantly, I knew the answer was no. Even if all three of my family members told me they could perfectly see the frogs with the pink bows through my knickers, I was already committed to the look. I loved those knickers, and the panties were so adorable! And I know now just like I knew back then, I would’ve never changed a thing. Because that’s just how I seem to roll…
I go back to that scene on the bed with my mom all the time in
She saw her deeply cautious daughter who was prone to bouts of worry, but who also had the ability to make up her mind about something, and then do it despite a fleeting sense of fear that she might be judged or exposed.
My “frog underwear” is almost like a code phrase between my sister and me now. Whenever I’m feeling like I need to do something with my storytelling, but I’m not absolutely certain I can do it perfectly — or I’m riddled with fear that it might not work — my sister reminds me of that story. “Put your frog panties and your pink knickers on and go for it, Sonja,” she’ll say. And so I do. Because deep down, I know I totally rocked that look that day.
And, because I know that’s just who I really am.
Ribbit.
