 © Anna Ostapiw
|
Coming Out Click to read Click to |
etg cover page | to purchase
© Anna Ostapiw
|
Coming Out Click to read Click to |
Coming Out
Our family has lived in Richmond, Virginia for years and years—since the 1920s and
1930s. My parents’ parents settled in Richmond’s West End, a part of town where
some of the families who built this town at the turn of the century have always lived.
Traditions run deep here, and Richmond society tends to cling to the way things have
always been done. One of its treasured rituals is the debutante season. As a college
freshman in the 1970s, I found the idea of being "presented to society" to be
archaic and nearly ludicrous. But I also found myself caught between my mother’s
generation, wherein being a debutante was considered socially correct, and my own desire
to make my own way without having to wear white and curtsy on my father’s arm.
Reconciling my independence and my loyalty to family became the central issue in my mind.
Ultimately, I came to realize that being a debutante was less of a statement and more of a
ceremonial tradition embedded in Southern culture.
As a little girl I spent sunny spring mornings in musty garages with my mother, watching her paint. She was a volunteer on the Junior Board of the Sheltering Arms Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, and she was an artist whose skills were tapped to paint scenery for the hospital’s annual fundraiser, the fancy debutante Bal du Bois. Though my mother quit her job teaching art in a nursery school when I was born, she never stopped giving her time. Volunteering, to her, was an imperative.
As with many other Richmond women, the question for my mother was not "if" but "what." She followed generations of privileged Southern women who were not part of the labor force at large but felt compelled to contribute. During those years she made puppets for the Children’s Theater and painted murals at the Cerebral Palsy Center. But the cause to which she seemed most devoted was Sheltering Arms. "They’ve never sent a bill," she used to say, explaining the importance of the fundraiser, started in 1957. Somehow the event survived the tumultuous 1960s, never lacking for debutantes or patrons, and continued to raise twenty thousand dollars annually in the 1970s.
For years I knew Richmond’s answer to New York and Philadelphia’s charity balls simply as "the Bal." All spring was spent at meetings and working on the decorations that would be set up around the terrace of the exclusive Country Club of Virginia on the first Tuesday night in June. There was always a theme: Egypt, Greece, Russia, Persia, or some other exotic locale. On the morning of the big night, I would join the other volunteer offspring by helping to carry flowers and mop the dance floor. The year that my mother was chairman, the details were the topic of her every phone conversation. Who would do the music, the flowers, the programs? And, of course, "the girls"—who would be making their debut? And who would receive the honor of leading the figure (a choreographed presentation of the girls)?
And that’s where things got complicated—at least for me. As 1972, the appointed year, approached, I began to cringe. Making my debut, for heaven’s sake, was not my style. Granted, I had all the symptoms: I’d grown up in Richmond’s West End, gone to a private school, had a mother who’d been on Sheltering Arms’ Junior Board. But the very thought of donning white dress and gloves and curtsying before God and the hundred patrons of the hospital made me want to run fast to parts unknown.
At eighteen, I was not a conformist. I’d chosen a little known out-of-state college, not the University of Virginia or Hollins. I had a double-pierced ear and a boyfriend who read Nabokov and smoked unfiltered Camels.
To "do it," as signing on as a deb was called, seemed phony. Would I not be betraying my real self by playing the role of unsullied young deb? On the other hand, the guilt of not doing it was more than I could bear. After all, my mother had devoted years to the cause. Surely, she’d feel humiliated if her own daughter snubbed the Bal.
So I agreed. I’d keep the Bal at arm’s length, but I’d do it. I’d show up at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and summer to do the party circuit. As was tradition, I’d have a party myself, but I’d do it with another reluctant deb. Together we’d snicker and smirk. Having made the decision, I thought I could put the whole ordeal out of my mind until the season was upon me.
Then one fall day, I plucked a letter from my little mailbox in the student union. I read with horror that I, along with another girl, had been chosen to lead the figure at the Bal. Other debs would have been honored. My first thought was, "How can I get out of this?" I dashed down to the pay phone, called my mother. "Had anyone ever refused?" I wanted to know. "Not that I know of," she said. She was excited and couldn’t take my grievance seriously. Not only was I going to "make my debut," but I was going to have to do it front and center, walking a figure on my father’s arm and curtsying on a summer night in June. How absurd! I trusted only my closest buddies with the tragic news. I’d be coming out—spending four nights out of seven making small talk over crab dip at deb parties, escorted by arranged dates.
The next June the process of coming out began. The tide turned at one of the very first parties, a dance held at Sherwood Forest plantation. I was placed with a boy who was to become my soul mate, my salvation, in this crazy episode. He understood my eye-rolling attitude, yet he underscored the duty I was performing and the fun that could be had along the way. Indeed, the music was always topnotch, from Peter Duchin to Lester Lanin, and the food exquisite. With my new friend, gone was the pretense of chitchat, the worry of fitting into a crowd with which I had little in common.
The tradition gave my neo-1960s psyche a jolt, but it wasn’t fatal. I returned to college in the fall unscathed by my deb experience, Indian tapestry skirts and clogs intact. Though I’ll go to my grave denying that I was ever a real debutante, I’ll boldly state that putting on the dress and gloves helped raise money for a hospital that never sent a bill. And, I confess, I had some fun.
Profile
I was doing freelance writing for STYLE and Elizabeth was my editor. She was affable, even-tempered, unruffled by pressing deadlines. Initially, her desk was in the news room and, later, it moved to a corner cubbyhole which was a study in creative organization, standard for a journalist. Magazines were strewn everywhere, stacks of books dared to topple over, and Post-Its stuck on every surface not already covered. How to leave messages for her? Where to put computer disks with the articles I was submitting? I stuck notes firmly to Elizabeth’s computer screen. And I propped computer disks on her keyboard. How to find the disks later? Elizabeth had decided that her small desk drawer was the place to dump all freelance writers’ disks. Looking for mine was like rummaging through boxes of cassette tapes at a backyard sale.
Elizabeth favored the spontaneous natural look: loose-fitting cotton jumpers, white Tees, wooden clogs, and long, casually styled hair. She’s a good writer, a good editor, a great ideas person, a woman who balances family and career. She comes of a fairly old Richmond family, it turns out, and, in another life, was a debutante. Most debutantes I’ve known are polished, dressed-for-success socialites or businesswomen, and Wt the image of Virginia gentry. But Elizabeth? She’s definitely her own person.
—Lynne B. Robertson
Bio
Tips For Writers |
Cover | Skills | Essays | Travel | History | Fiction | Poetry | Reviews | Ordering | Books Online
