Naked

“I can’t believe it. I’m finally free.”

Isabelle

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*It’s been awhile, babes. My last post in July was an unfortunate adieu. Two finger surgeries due to an unknown nerve issue. It only got worse. My health drastically declined. At the very last moment of 2023, I fainted in the shower. I broke my tailbone and badly bruised my ribs. I woke up naked on the floor and didn’t remember a thing. I still don’t. I’m typing this now with my fingers all taped-up while sitting on a gel donut seat, unsure when I’ll pass out again. The doctor’s say it’s all connected, a possible rare blood disease. They say treatment could be likened to Chemotherapy. This post, like all the ones before it, is my way of processing*

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I’ll be honest, the end of 2023 had me feeling like I was rolling around in a graveyard with the living dead. I was finding my footing again, brushing off the awe and overwhelming discomfort at what it felt like to be wanted by everyone around me except for myself.

It’s truly amazing how much can happen when you spend 4 weeks horizontal, unable to move. I was alive and alone in my own tomb. Fresh shadows filled the room – but for the first time, none of them were mine.

Believe it or not, life is a lot like the movie Spookies. This one came out in the US in January 1988 which means there’s no better time to talk about it than right now. As usual, a gorgeous parade of babes and insane monsters worth talking about in this film, but I always go back to Isabelle.

When a babe wakes from a deep slumber in an actual coffin (naturally) in full wedding garb, you know shit’s about to go down.

If you’ve kept up with my blog this long you know how much I love a story that’s told in styling. An outfit that starts out perfect only to be ripped to shreds by the end.

Isabelle, played by Maria Pechukas is no exception to this magical unraveling. There are few outfits that can do it better than a classic, embellished, white wedding gown.

The white, the appliqués on her bodice, the pearl buttons, the sheer tulle neckline with the high collar beaded at the lace, and of course, the cathedral-length embellished veil. It’s all SO much. It’s over-the-top on purpose.

What the color white represents to us is engrained. It’s angelic. It’s innocent. It’s virgin. Because of these assimilations, the choice of a wedding dress draws even more attention to the dangers around her. It’s the juxtaposition. She is in direct contrast to everything dark and sinister in the room.

I mean, the dress itself is horrifying – Iconic bridal. Doting and confining. A wedding dress like this heightens two illusions simultaneously.

• That she wants to be there
• That she will make it to the end

Isabelle knows all about illusion. That when you were never prepared for what you were born into, starting a life learning how to hate yourself, duhhhh you can still be hot as hell, but you get fucking tired. Spending your whole life faking it. Holding your head up high, pretending you’re worth a damn. That shit takes its toll.

I understand her entirely when she wakes up from her deep slumber and says, “Please, let me die. Why won’t you let this end?”

But like, sometimes a babe needs to be woken up from a deep fucking sleep to then sit with herself for long enough to acknowledge all the things she’s actually been through.

While Isabelle was haunted by that puppet monster, also dressed in white, maybe she thought to herself, wow why is this bitch on my ass? Mental and chronic physical illness is enough to deal with without this gross-ass puppet following me around.

I wonder if Isabelle ever considered that the gross puppet was just a version of herself standing in her own way, slowing her down.

“I poisoned myself once before and I’ll do it again, or find another way.”

Isabelle

Sickness inside. Sickness outside. Sickness without a name. When you are faced with your own mortality, again and again, it puts everything into perspective. Sometimes you don’t get answers. You don’t get the gift of figuring it all out. You don’t get the diagnosis that will save you.

There’s no fucking time left in the world to hate yourself or the shit you came from when you realize how much of it is actually running out. Don’t let your monster puppet bitch keep you from all that you could have done. Don’t let her take you from all that you still have left.

After everything she goes through, Isabelle is one tear away from being completely naked in the graveyard. A true dream. Her dress is barely a slip. She’s bloody, bruised, and fully stripped of any illusion. The white is a clean slate. She’s starting again. Holding her head up high.

Does she make it out alive? Does it matter? When she loses the dress, almost bare and still running, she looks more like herself than she does sleeping in that fucking coffin at the beginning.

Starting as one thing, ending up as something else altogether. The dress being torn, layer by layer, is all incredibly necessary. Cause a babe needs to start over. Exposed, she needs to meet herself exactly where she is right now, completely stripped of anything she thought life would be.

One day something might really wake you up. You’ll open your eyes at the beginning of a new year, naked and terrified that it’s all over. That you died before you could finally get to the point where you wanted to live at all.

Barley able to move, unable to write without pain, without a future, unsure of what will happen next, you’ll be forced to sit with yourself and everything you’ve been through. You’ll finally realize that you aren’t afraid of the gross monster puppet that’s followed you around your whole life.

If life is like Spookies, then I get to laugh at how ridiculous it all is. I’ll scream, I’ll thrash, and I’ll move through the uncertainty of my dying body reminding myself that it’s just part of the insane, unfathomable story.

After almost 35 years there is no illusion. I feel two things simultaneously:

• I want to be here
• I will make it to the end

Welcome to 2024 little monsters. ❤

Thanks to costume designers Ann Burgund and Tom Molinelli for letting me see myself through Isabelle.

Xoxo,

Grace