Have you ever been to a masquerade party or ball? I’ve been to a few, though it’s somewhat difficult to wear a mask as I wear glasses (and am quite blind without them – contacts are not an option for me).
Still, the idea of two masked people coming together at a party and discovering a spark between them only to realize they know each other after the masks come off is one of my favorite tropes/fantasies. And of course I love the stories of people like Cinderella and Superman who are suddenly unrecognizable to the people who know them just because they dressed more attractively than normal…I think because I can identify with that having had it happen to me personally on several occasions.
Apparently I clean up well, but look completely unremarkable the rest of the time. Which isn’t a bad thing, I don’t think. It’s actually pretty handy sometimes, and I do kind of enjoy the shock factor of surprising people by merely putting some time and effort into my appearance.
But…many of us wear figurative masks all day anyway, don’t we? We act a certain way at work, and then a different way at home with family, and yet another way with friends and differently again with closer friends. We make decisions on an hourly basis about what mask we’re wearing and who gets to see it, and at the end of the day, when all is quiet and dark, if we’re lucky, we can take all the masks off and just be…ourselves.
I think perhaps for next year, I’ll write about a Halloween Masquerade, and a woman named Brittany Mansfield who is wearing a rather elaborate mask, both literally and figuratively. At the ball she’ll meet a man intent on finding out what’s under the mask…but the price he has to pay will be the mask he wears himself.
Naturally, the setting will be a grand old mansion with elaborate rooms, secret passageways, and perhaps a dungeon.
I do believe I’ll pencil it into next year’s writing schedule this weekend.
Are you dressing up for Halloween? I don’t often, because I’m too busy finishing the front yard decor for the trick-or-treaters (we have a large display). The last time I dressed up for a masquerade party at our local museum, I went as Harley Quinn. I was more than a little disappointed that weapons weren’t allowed, even fake.
So no blow-up baseball bat or big hammer. *sigh*
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