Ah, you say in response, but it's autumn, and a dressing gown is needed for the chilly mornings and frost-bringing evenings.
You mistake my meaning, for the style of gown you mean warms the body only. It does not warm, nor protect, the soul. Though I do, of course, wear that style of gown too. Usually over clothes, night or day, like the housecoats women used to wear. Mine gets removed no later than eleven, at both ends of the day, but its put-on time varies, as does what's on underneath. Never bare, so don't get any ideas there. This is not a revealing piece, not in that way, so I suggest you take yourself somewhere else if that's what you're looking for. Return as we move into spring then summer for some middle-aged flesh if that's your thing; there'll be more of it then on show, though not for your pleasure but for my comfort.
For that's what it's all about: comfort.
My soul without a dressing gown, its own or another's, for it has tried on others, has never felt comfortable. It requires some form of protection, not armour exactly, for invisible robes aren't made of such stuff but of strong material that still allows movement and yet prevents unwholesome life from penetrating its folds. Mine, in general, can be wrapped around my person one and a half times before being tied with a belt at the hip, never the front, and never in a bow but in a knot, a single or a double knot. They have, too, to be at least ankle if not floor length; in other words shoulders to feet, and with perhaps a collar that turns up to cover the neck. And I do prefer those without a hood, although I sometimes think a hood, if you're pretty and free of spectacles and with your hair done just so, with tendrils, can look quite attractive. The feel, the look important even if you're the only one aware that you're wearing it and know you can't be complimented on it. It should make the soul feel good. And safe.
To echo Chekhov: 'How soft, how snug, how warm, how comfortable - and how bored you are!'
Bored? No; I'm not bored, for the dressing gown my soul adorns itself with may be all of those things, but it cannot prevent life from happening, in general. It may not happen directly to me but it happens to other people, real and fictional, whilst I sit observing it from a white chair with a green seat cushion. Vicarious living is much more interesting and satisfying, especially if the lens is positioned to spy on people farther away, as in down the years, because nearer to the current age it's all petty squabbles and Me.
Ah, Me. My soul cares not a jot for that (it's lying).
Does it care for itself? Well, it thinks it does, due to the fabulous dressing gowns it often dons, wide sleeves, a swirling skirt, so soft or so silky to the touch, so pleasing to the eye (as they would be too to another's gaze if they could be seen), so pleasing to be cocooned in, but no, it has been known to neglect bodily concerns. What is hunger? What is cold? When there is tea and books, and a little light for warmth and to read by. And peace. Where no other beasts (of the human kind) disturb it. It would, if it could, cast off its own image, and disengage completely, but the human has its hold.
I, the human says, I. And You must stay. Grounded.
For the human knows the soul likes too much its dressing gown. It is a cowardly lion. No medals for courage have been pinned to its breast, and it no longer strives to win one. This is life it has said, the dressing gown.
The dressing gown gives it more more than life ever did. Acceptance for one thing, of what is and what isn't. Of its own nature, which seems so different to the healthy and normal ordinary human. Of the part it has and still might play in real life. Of its own fear.
Yes, the dressing gown was taken to early, at thirty-five or thirty or some years before, but this, though it suggests retreat, though it suggests rest, wasn't retreat or rest it was work, and that work, although now different in tone, persists, as does the gown that must be worn at all times while it's done.
Picture credit: The Dressing Gown, 1892, Pierre Bonnard (source: WikiArt.)
See An Anonymous Story by Chekhov.
Written July 2020.
