Boulder and the Beautiful

Need fashion  inspiration?
Check out the HospiceCare & Share Thrift Shop “All That Glitters” event 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Sunday at the store, 5290 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder.
The sale features higher end, used women’s evening gowns, accessories, shoes, handbags, slacks and tops — perfect to prepare for holiday parties and New Year’s Eve.

Tip: Holiday gifts and decorations go on sale for half off after 2 p.m.

Fashion flash: 

What: The Swiss Chalet is hosting a silent auction to benefit HospiceCare of
Boulder and Broomfield counties.
Where: The Swiss Chalet, 1642 Pearl St., Boulder.
When: Friday, Dec. 9, noon-8 p.m.; and Saturday, Dec. 10, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Also:Catering by Laudisio’s.

About the event: The Swiss Chalet is known for its fine timepieces, so be prepared to find plenty to bid on.

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Check out this upcoming fashion event: 

Mad Hatter Brunch & Fashion
Show A three-course plated
brunch, live music, floral displays,
dance performances, fashion show,
live auction, crazy hat contest, raf´
fles and more while helping bring
awareness about Lyme Disease, 9
a.m. Saturday, Nov. 5, St. Julien Hotel and
Spa, 900 Walnut St., Boulder, $75.
Details: 213-308-7306 or www.robin´
srescue.blogspot.com.

Who is it? Mari Lowery, of New York.

Link: www.etsy.com/shop/frighten. Also check out frankenkitty.etsy.com.

Why is it awesome? Original, one-of-a-kind collages and prints that marry antique photos, animals and all of the joy, beauty and freakishness of Halloween.

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Local students found cruelty-free feather hair extension company

The mission is clear: “Style without slaughter, quality without cruelty.”

Fair Feathers, an online company founded by two local college students, sells synthetic feather hair extensions. The founders, Scott Hardy, from Silver Creek (now at Santa Clara University), and Spencer Wolfe, from Niwot High (now at Columbia) founded the company in an effort to protect roosters that are used for their beautiful feathers that people affix to their hair. The company aims to offer an ethical (and equally as beautiful) alternative.

According to Fair Feathers, once the roosters’ feathers reach the desired length, “the rooster’s back is then skinned, producing a “saddle” with approximately 200 usable feathers.”

Fair Feathers are custom, synthetic feather bundles that cost less, come in more colors and are more durable. In fact, the company donates a portion of its profits to help prevent animal cruelty.

For more information, check out FairFeathers.org.

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I few years ago, I wrote about Boulder’s Vanessa Barcus and her online store Goldyn.
Tonight is the grand opening for her new storefront, 2040 W. 30th St., in Denver.

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Because this is a top 10 shoe list I have not yet made.

Strippers, burlesque dancers and showgirls have the most creative footwear.
For a local shop selling dancing shoes (but not all of these featured below), check out thehouseofharlots.com.

1. You stepped on something.

2. Geek chic: Tron sexy.

3. Wood. Heh. OK, I don’t really like this one. I picked it for the unique award.

4. Hardcore. This shoe says “Look, but don’t touch or I will murder you.”

5. Something else to do with your old newspapers.

6. For gals who like sneakers and trucks with mud flaps.

7. If Dolly Parton were an exotic dancer.

8. My name is James. James Bondage.

9. There’s no place like home.

10. Pin up, get down.

And my least favorite shoe ever:

I am sure there are a lot of nasty puns I could make here, but instead I will just say “I don’t really like cats.”

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AP Photo

Yankee Doodle went to the 2012 men’s fashion show in Paris,

Riding on a horse

Stuck a feather in his hat

And called it the next fashion force.

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There is something ethereal about the way Teresa Chamberland moves. She shyly stretches out her fingers, and it’s like watching a song.

Sometimes, but only when she thinks no one is watching, she lets that music roll through her entire body. And simply witnessing this raw potential, this rare honesty in movement, brings goosebumps to my skin and tears of joy to my eyes.

Part of the intensity in Teresa’s beauty is that she has no idea.

She doesn’t know that, even when she tries to tuck into the corner, she will always be the center of the room. That all energy seems to be swirling around and toward her, as her strong arms carry her body in circles around the pole. Like so many women, this mother of two is so hard on herself. She tries to smother her feminine power with sarcasm and criticism and rolled eyes. But it keeps sneaking out, despite her. And her habits of humility and self-suppression are losing the battle against this newly discovered light inside her.

Teresa was so nervous for her first pole-dancing class that she texted me all night about it and enrolled in a level 1 class, even though I promised to her she could handle level 2. She liked it. Hmm. It was interesting. She came back, this time to level 2, but she wanted to make sure I would be there. For moral support, you know. She chose the pole in the farthest back corner, far from the mirrors and attention.

Her spins began close to the pole, cautious, held back. But underlying her every step, from day one, was a magnetism. Something different. Something big.

On Facebook, she writes:

Anytime I tell someone I’m taking pole dancing classes, people avert their eyes and sometimes blush. It does bring up a taboo preconceived idea in their minds. They won’t say it, but they look at me differently.

And that’s OK. I’m fine with that these days.

I’m learning this because it’s sort of addicting. It’s fun and hard to do, but then really fun again. The instructors there are incredible and make you feel good about yourself even when you know you’re not quite getting the spin or the sexy up.

Teresa enrolls in a few more classes. Suddenly, it’s not so awkward to walk around the pole. Her movements indicate that she is starting to discover her hips and core. And her hips and core can move in circles and front to back and side to side. Not just in a straight and rigid line. As Teresa’s body grows stronger in its circles around the pole, the circles of her hips grow more confident, too.

And something deeper begins unraveling.

Teresa writes:

I started off doing this because it’s an amazing workout. And I brought so much baggage with me. My sister was a topless dancer for years. She was also an alcoholic and was severely abused as a child. And so I always assumed dancing on a pole came from a place of sadness and desperation. It seemed to be her only way to survive in the world.

I grew up in the same house as my sister, so I have all the same experiences she had, but I processed my abuse differently. I shunned anything sensual and maintained very low self-esteem. That seemed safe to me. That seemed like the right thing to do.

But I realize I’ve given up so many experiences in life because of the abuse. I’ve been afraid to try new things and to attract attention to myself. I survived my childhood by being the “good girl.” By just being quiet and not attracting any attention, good or bad. But that’s a very lonely place to live your life.

On Tuesday, Teresa discovers the Ice Skater Spin. It’s the final spin in level 2 — the hardest one. Maybe it’s the challenge — a lifetime of soft and quiet perfection, finally imploding. A levy crashing. As if she has waited her entire life for this one moment, Teresa effortlessly bursts into a flawless spin.

She lands with a shocked look on her face and laughs.

“Where did that come from?”

She asks the question out loud, but I don’t answer. Because I know it’s rhetorical.

We all know where it came from.

It completely amazes me how much has happened in one week.

The first few times you try pole dancing, it’s super hard and unnatural and awkward. I tripped on my feet and felt really self-conscious walking, like I wasn’t walking “right” or “pretty enough.” I have never had looming concerns about my ability to walk before, but throw a silver pole in one hand and suddenly I am alternating between tip-toes and stomping and trying way too hard to do this most basic human movement.

And forget the spins. I basically stood there watching everyone float around like butterflies while I cocked my head like a puppy dog and thought, “Maybe I should try hula hooping instead.” I was convinced I was not strong enough, coordinated enough or graceful enough. Still, because I’m crazy or a good sport or stupid or all of the above, I kept going back.

Then, something clicked. I’m not saying I suddenly became an aerial expert ready for the circus, but after about class four, I began interacting with the pole differently. Maybe it’s muscle memory, or maybe your brain shuts up, or maybe you stop worrying about how big your thighs look in those booty shorts (which should really be called booty underwear, even though they are smaller than many of my actual underwearses). Or maybe you just stop fearing the pole, and your body, and how it moves, and your femininity.

Feminine is scary.

Ooh. It really is. Because it’s misunderstood. It’s the darkness, the yin.The cold, the inward and downward. The unexplainable and intuitive and unmeasurable and undefinable. It’s that dark part of all of us — of every aspect of the universe — that is easier to ignore than understand, much less accept. Even much less celebrate. This is even apparent down to the way society is critical of the physical shape of a woman (and of course any feminine and empowered movement of that shape), and puts impossible pressure on its women to squish, starve and cut their bodies down into flat, boxy little-boy shapes.  (Not to say that only “real” women are all curvy. They aren’t.  But not all are skinny, either. We aren’t supposed to all look the same.)

After a few hours of climbing and spinning on the pole — yes, this week I am no longer staring in bewilderment, but I am sort of starting to get some legitimate air — it is beginning to seem silly to think that people would judge it as anything other than another form of self-expression — mixed with a surprising amount of athleticism and power. Which, now that I think about it, seems to be the very definition of “strong woman,” in true, honest and vulnerable physical form.

So of course pole dancing freaks some people out, and elicits a mysterious, taboo response from others.

Still, I find myself casually avoiding mentioning to my mom that I am sore from pole dancing, and I felt apologetic when I mentioned pole dancing around my friend’s 14-year-old son. I felt like I needed to explain that I wasn’t undressing or naked or even grinding on the pole — at all. I want to disclaim that my dance routine could just as easily be done without the pole, but that the pole is just like a prop, to help create different kinds of spins and moves and a different energy.

But even if I disclaim, is anyone really listening? Or just hearing what they already think they know?

***

On another note, a hypnotist asked me (long story… I have a very interesting job) today if I could change one thing in my life, what would it be?

I thought about this a lot, and my brain kept coming back to thinking about these pole dancing classes. But why? On many levels, they are super silly and fun and superficial. But there is something else really odd going on with them, something that’s bigger than just twirling and making my husband get excited to come to a fundraiser for the first and probably last time in his life.

What would I want to change? And how did that relate to pole dancing? I settled on this:

I had a near-death childbirth 15 months ago that left me in bed for several months. I am now finally regaining my strength and energy, trying to reconnect with my body in a new way. I have begun dancing again, and I am interested in realizing my physical strength (because I already have been forced to realize my internal strength), while still staying compassionate with my body and how it is different now.

On an intangible level, it is about seeing myself as a strong survivor instead of a victim of what happened to me. And how that could be expressed externally would be by fearlessly accepting and displaying my existing physical strength as I improve my dancing.

You hear that, me? It’s OK to be as strong as you already are, whether that strength looks like deltoids pulling your body 15 feet into the air, or whether it looks like an effortless spin to the floor, whether it’s smiling, or darkness, or messing up over and over again. The strength is in the honesty.