Memory 1: That dress in that orange-red hue

Paris airport.

Flight delayed. 

I wait, my stomach in knots. I am really nervous about my client meeting in Geneva. I feel scattered. A ton of documents to go through and there was a muck-up with my flight ticket so there was a delay there and I had to finish off another project before I traveled. So all in all...my mind is in a million folders and half-finished Word documents. 

I am hungry and parched. 

I want something hot, spicy and quiche-like and large. And a warm, sweet, spicy drink. I have been off meat and liquor for a while. Otherwise a good toasted ham ad cheese sandwich, a glass of red, and a side of hash brown with bacon bits or pasta with sausage and white sauce would have been ideal.

 
And then there is the issue of the wi-fi at Orly airport which is either there or not, free or not, for you or not - who can tell. I try to remember my French and squint at the three lines of instructions with varying accents - only to understand that you must contact the airport authorities for assistance. And whatever I observed of the airport authority, they were surly, rude, very well-dressed, and possessive of the wi-fi. It was small mercy that they were equally abrasive with everyone - the German business traveler, the British mum with two very, very cute children, a group of three young people of indeterminate nationality who seem as if they have featured in random ads that require happy young people playing volleyball on the beach. And me.

So I was hungry, thirsty, nervous, and exhausted. Although I do like my eyes sunken and with dark circles and all, the sunkenness had achieved a crater look that was the stuff make-up artists win awards for, for gothic movies. 

I got a measly burger and tepid coke. Ate with dissatisfaction and wandered around. 

Then I saw her. 

I can only say 'her' because she really was too beautiful to be called a 'dress'. She was draped on an alabaster-like mannequin in a loving, daring mush of tangerine and cherry shade, woven and spun with wool and satin, mid-calf length, cinched waist, a deep neck, and soft flutter sleeves that would change the direction of the wind with their genteel cut. 

She was an Hermès.

 
They say that you know it is love when it makes you 'dare'. You go where you haven't been before. You go there willingly, disregarding the mutiny of your mind and heart, your old beliefs and your fresh new wants...you go. 

She was out of my league except that I had loved Hermès ever since I was a little girl and I played with my mom's scarves. I was always told they were very expensive and special. And those scarves themselves would be wrapped in silk my mu would especially buy to keep the scarves in. 

So Hermès had my quiet devotion as that intangible thing one aspired to be worthy of someday. And that 'someday' was certainly not that day with my heavy laptop and weathered clothes.

But I don't know. Maybe it was the fatigue, the overwhelm, the futility of planning and waiting, the hunger - or just the nobility of her silhouette, that I went inside the store.

Now a Hermès store is always stocked with beautiful things. But this dress was coated with a angelic halo. I stood next to the mannequin. Then I wiped my hand down my ratty sweatshirt and jeans. Then I stood and looked and waited. 

And then, I touched. And then, she responded.

That fabric, those seams, and this close I noticed tiny little rosettes embroidered along the hems of the sleeves and the skirt. Everything about the dress was soothing and gracious. Even the neckline that seemed to plunge deep was coquettish in the way the fabric overlapped and gave it a wrap-dress pattern. I can't say for sure - but she even smelled of sandalwood and roses. 

It's like you enter a crowded temple of pedestrian beauty and you find yourself in the sanctum sanctorum of the mesmerizing goddess herself and all the crowd has melted away. So I just stood there, touching the fabric.

I hadn't noticed her but the store lady startled me. She looked at me with the kindest grey-green eyes and asked me, "You like?" 

I nodded. I think if I had spoken anything then, I would have cried. 

Anyway, if I ever knew that one's time was up, it was then. I said "Merci" and was about to move away, when she asked me, "Would you like to try it?" 

In the spirit of the love that makes you want to do daring, foolish things, I found myself in the changing room. 

That room itself -you wouldn't guess that it was in the middle of such a bustling airport. There was a buttery, champagne coloured wall-paper, a stool with horses and harps embroidered in crimson, a door with a bright blue handle that cleverly masked the Hermès 'H'. 

I wore it and whatever angel was giving this gorgeous column of fabric a halo at the entrance was right there in the dressing room, nodding her approval. I mean, sure, I have worn well-fitted, expensive clothes before. And sure, I knew in theory, that a dress when cut to your shape really does wonders. But this was beyond magic. It was not just cut to the shape of my body, it was cut to shape of something else about me. It's like this. If I had to be the muse of a deep artist or a wonderful poet, if I could inspire that artist or poet to create something so magical that he would transform the world - if I could do that...then this dress fit that 'I'. And the fact that it did fit me, meant that that 'I' existed. Not just in me. In the person who had never known me and designed the dress. In the fingers of the seamstress who sewn it. In the lady whose grey-green eyes asked me to try it on. 

How very many people have to see the beauty in you without meeting you that they create something like this. That you find something half-way across the world in the middle of a brain-fog to get that lease of life. 

It was 7000 Euros. And she was very, very worth it. 

I did not have that kind of cash. So I took off the dress and sat on the stool holding her for some time. 

She was beautiful because she was kind. She was beautiful not because she shamed you into fitting her. She was beautiful because she was generous enough to fit you.

Anyway, I stroked it very tenderly, got dressed again (it was hard getting into that sweatshirt and jeans) and stepped out. 

That lady was there, smiling. I handed it over and said that it was a very beautiful dress and thank you. But I would not be taking it. 

She smiled so sweetly and said, "But you feel better?" 

I said yes. (I hadn't imagined that angel.)

I returned to the rows of travelers sitting on the floors near charging sockets because some 4 more flights were canceled and the passengers were choking the aisles, etc. 

The dress had gone back on the mannequin. The lady with grey-green eyes was back at the register. 

And one really tired person in a very crowded airport suddenly felt so good about her journey going forward. It was going to be all tangerine and cherries from now on.