Anachronism is, according to the Oxford English Thesaurus: "a thing belonging or appropriate to a period other than that in which it exist. esp. especially a thing that is conspicuously old-fashioned".
It does not apply to me because I like to wear 20s clothing, or have the morals of the 50s, or for that matter, the spirit of the 60s, or for any such simple, discernable reason. It is an odd mixture of influences. For one thing, it seems to me in hindsight, that I was practically raised in and entirely different time than the other kids in my kindergarten and later, class. When I was little, my mother and I had mostly old things, due to poverty and most likely her rebellious ethics. We lived in a house that was heated with tall, tiled wood stoves, and was often so cold in the morning, that laying in bed, my breath formed vapor clouds.
Sometimes my mother would even dress me in 50-year-old sailor dresses and tie a giant bow to my hair, to emphasize the impression that I was actually the long lost descendant of Russia's last Czars. She had an extensive collection of magazines from the 50s and 60s for her work, but subscribed to none of their contemporary counterparts, and so I was always very hip to what was going on with Natalie Wood and Hailey Mills, and never quite sure who Madonna was. We had no TV for years, and then when we finally got one the National Public Radio had a Humphrey Bogart marathon on, and consequently, for a year, at age 13, I chose to dress in the styles of the 1940s, complete with gloves and occasionally, hats. This was followed, briefly, by a 50s Salinger-esque preppy period, which was in turn replaced by a bohemian, beat-style era, that finally fell into sync with the rest of the world, when at 15, I got into the grungy hippie looks that were happening then. Looking at my pictures from those years, it's as though I travelled trough three decades in as many years.
All my childhood, it seemed that the present was never quite, well, present. This, by-and-large, has not changed much. As I prepare to pack my prairie dresses and move to a small Island to grow vegetables and make my own fun by sewing, reading out loud and running in the woods, I can't help wondering what time might I be living out exactly? The back-to-the-land 70s? The Pioneering 1870s? The wholesome 50s? Time will tell, I suppose.
Ps. Thank goodness for the wonderful ladies of Wardrobe Remix, who make my time in the slightly wrong time, a lot less lonely. See what I mean here, here and here.
