Traveling Show

Sewing machines are demonic familiars with which those of us who make things from cloth try to peacefully coexist.  I got a new one just before the beginning of my project.  It was twenty dollars at the thrift store, probably sent there for spewing metal shards at its original owner.  What some people call an emergency room visit trying to happen I call a security feature.  These things are personal.  They have personalities.  They were never meant to be shared.  The best sewing machine may be the slightly dangerous one everyone but its owner leaves alone.  It has disintegrated four needles so far, hurling them at me as razor-sharp fragments, but my tuxedo is going well.  

I got fed up with practicing what amounts to a hybrid of tailoring and necromancy on worn out polyester and got a tuxedo pattern.  I will make my concert suit.  It will be soft and sturdy, riddled with pockets for useful things.  One will be plastic-lined to carry bottles of oil.  It will be simple, a single-breasted, one-button, peaked lapel jacket, black pants with the distinctive, silk stripe up the seams.  I am putting too much time and money into this suit for it to be single-purpose, so it will be epaulette-compatible to turn more steampunk as needed.  I bought some gold fringe and trim with the wool because I have to make those, too.  Some silk I squirreled away a couple of years ago will be the stripes and shiny lapels.  

I look over things four or five times before I cut.  This will be the one that actually fits.  It will look gorgeous with a top hat and/or under a cape.  It will be light enough to make the un-air-conditioned, end-of-May gigs that fill my band’s coffers less miserable.  It will be dark as the empty spaces in a bass line. 

This is not a suit I should have worn.  I took up tuba female, autistic, 4’10,” accustomed to an unhealthily sedentary lifestyle, full of learned helplessness, and scared of my own shadow.  I had nine middle and high school band directors, one intermittent, paid teacher and several better, unofficial ones.  I learned to play from tubas themselves.  My upbringing in band consisted of the standard, literal, blood, sweat, and tears.  That I made it to play after graduation, wear nice suits and real bow ties, deposited checks made out to me for playing my instrument is bizarre.  That I played Ride of the Valkyries the other night with a sound that had outgrown the house and rattled every pane of glass and made the plaster shudder is impossible.  As the year changes and I assemble the most beautiful tuxedo I have ever had, I remember that my life has been touched by a plethora of miracles.  I have much to pay forward.