THE ROOSTER

THE ROOSTER

It happened in my childhood. My family was living in a small town in Bulgaria. Everybody knows you there and you know everyone. My father was a doctor, while my mother was a nurse. They must have saved the life of at least one member of every family. I was the younger child in the house. There was a wedding coming up and I needed a beautiful dress. Since these are not the American traditions, it was more important at the time for a child to have a new dress/pants and the child will feel happy. I am 110% sure – if I was expected to wear the same dress as the girl walking to the left of me, or to the right, and perform one and the same “job function”, like carrying flowers, I would not have been very happy. Having “a job” at this age did not sound appealing.  

Don’t get me wrong, I am not against any traditions. I am against following them frigidly. But what did I know about that? I was just supposed to get a dress for attending a wedding. Let’s focus on that.

At the time, there were no stores with cute children’s clothes. Everything was custom made. My mother used one good seamstress with an established reputation for her unique designs. Mom already had the fabric – red velvet… I loved the color, the feel of it, and the smell of it. In my short life, I had never seen a red velvet dress. 

The seamstress told us to come back for a fitting in a few days. When we returned, I tried the dress on. Umm, definitely, absolutely, I did not like it. It was hard to explain in my language how bad the dress looked. It was so “not me.” As far as clothes go, I already knew who I was. 

I rushed out in the yard of the house half dressed with the pins on the unfinished dress – all livid. Mom and the seamstress ran after me horrified. I had a temper, they knew. They started chasing me and begging me to come back. Filled with rage, I did not notice there was a big rooster walking in the yard. He must have had a bad temper, too. I wish I knew that. He bit me on the face, very close to my left eye. You can see the scar [even today]. This made me run even faster. The houses were close to each other. When I got home, I saw some blood runing from my wound. By the time my Mom came home, the word had spread. Everyone in the town knew about THE ROOSTER and ME event. Seems like nothing else hit the news that day…

This was the rooster’s third strike. He had attacked other clients of the seamstress. He ended up into a deep pot the very next day. Red was his favorite color.  Red is the color of passion, they say… 

As for me, I grew up completely in love with roosters. Today, I have roosters from antique stores, galleries, roosters on kitchen napkins, tablecloths, many, many roosters. But, I still keep looking for my ROOSTER and I know he is looking for ME. 

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