Dying from self-consciousness

Saturday night my husband and I were blessed to be invited to the wedding reception of one of his colleagues. This friend happens to be of Indian descent as does his new bride.

It was a wonderful, lavish affair with the best food I have eaten in years. Suffice it to say, I weighed 3 1/2 pounds more the day after that reception. Of course, I only overate to keep from offending them. I'm not really a glutton.

We had so much fun. The most significant part of the evening to me was observing the crowd. Remember, I live in Tennessee. I come from the land of camouflage, white chiffon dresses, and cornbread with pinto beans.

The crowd was about 2/3 Indian and 1/3 not. And what a sad sight my little not crowd was.

Almost all of the women who weren't Indian were wearing black dresses. Plain, black dresses. Not me of course. Mine was dark blue. And under those dresses? You just know there wasn't a body that wasn't squeezed and manipulated into some form of spanx. On our feet? The proper shoes. Uncomfortable? But, of course. And we stood there. Stiffly. Self-consciously. Quietly.

What about the Indian women? It was like a Crayola box had exploded over their side of the room. They were a riot of color. Bright, beautiful clothing with legions of matching bangle bracelets trailing up each arm. Many had exposed backs or sides. All had exposed arms. Brightly painted nails peeked out at me from under the hems of those dresses while resting in shiny, flat, comfortable sandals.

We could not have looked more dissimilar if we had tried.

And when the dancing began, the Indian couples raced to the dance floor while we sat and pondered for a while. Did we know that song? Could we dance to it? Would we feel self-conscious?

Meanwhile, 50 and 60 year old women and men were out there with their hands raised to the ceiling, dancing and singing. You could hear the women's bracelets jingling from the back of the room. And those fleshy sides and arms? They looked mesmerizing on the dance floor.

Such self-confidence makes any woman look appealing and sexy. You could tell that the men were proud to be out there with them - even if their love handles were exposed and dancing. They were joyous.

We were cloaked in black and worried about how we looked. We shouldn't have been. No one gave us a passing glance.