Reflections - JASNA 2024 AGM Postcards
JW in Regency Dress
Dear
Darlene,
Thanks for accompanying me to Evensong at Trinity Cathedral and for eating dinner with Spence and me afterward. What a night to remember.
Another night to remember was the following Saturday. I assured Spence he didn’t have to come back to get me into my Regency dress because I could find a Janeite to assist. He insisted. I suspect he really wanted to get his hands on the push-up bra you kindly helped me find. Remember the Victoria’s Secret sales girl? She’d decided to give up before we convinced her to let me try on the blue-and-pink lacy thing. Then she gushed in relief that the last bra in my size the store had stocked actually worked.
The night of the ball, Spence fumbled with the hooks while I forced the cups into place in front. Then I slipped into my Regency dress. Spence easily buttoned the dress back and took photos before I left for the banquet and ball. Almost all the ladies wore Regency dresses. We had the same unnatural profile. Pushed up. I could manage for one night.
At the ball, I clapped, passed right shoulders, turned in a circle, and swung with my partner.
The bra didn’t cooperate. The push-up kept pushing up. My breasts slipped down. At the end of the first dance, I hustled to the ladies’ room to readjust the naughty undergarment. You and I hadn’t considered the effect a country dance would have on the bra when we shopped.
After sitting out the second dance, I joined the third and hoped I’d stuffed my breasts securely this time. Alas, the push-up pushed up again. Short of securing the undergarment with duct tape, I don’t trust that contraption to behave on the dance floor.
Love,
Janet
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| English Country Dancing 1 |
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| The Bare Necessities |
Dear Sister Julie,
I imagine you enjoyed the fall leaves. Sister Loretta would have gasped at autumn’s hues. She would also have delighted in the English country dance music at the ball I attended in Cleveland.
Bare Necessities, the band that pianist Jacqueline Schwab founded, played Saturday night at the Jane Austen conference. Tom Tumbusch taught and called dances. A Jennifer I’d just met—not to be confused with my two Jennifer friends that helped run the conference—was my partner for the third dance. As part of the dance, I stepped diagonally to my corner, stepped backward, circled by myself, turned my partner, then circled with the set.
Jennifer scrunched her face at me. “Are you dizzy? You should sit down.”
The movements of changing sets, turning to face new friends, or staying with old friends were fast and did confuse me. But, horrors. Tom had threatened that if dancers left, the line would fall apart. A dancer couldn’t leave unless they took their whole set. Jennifer would have left, but not the others. “I’m fine,” I lied and figured I was tired, complicated by my normal wibble-wobbles.
Jennifer pursed her lips. Having taken the man’s place, she didn’t turn me again. She held her gloved hands palms facing down. “Just rest.” She convinced some sets not to circle. At the end of the dance she sat me at a table, got me water, and told me to relax. She realized what I hadn’t.
After four full days at the conference, vertigo was commencing. Before it hit full force, I gazed at the dancers and got a new perspective on the dance—the flow of costumed dancers walking, skipping, and leaping to the music’s beat. Their images blurred, as would my shaky photos, but the image of Jennifer’s kindness will shine in my heart forever.
Love,
Janet
English Country Dancing 2
