My mother was a trained artist. She died nearly 10 years go. My father, who is living, is also an artist. That's his job and he supported four children and a wife as an artist. That art was important in my childhood is an understatement. My mother taught me the color wheel when I was five. She would pull fashion pictures out of magazines and use them as teaching aids for color, cut and line. I was visually groomed throughout my life with them. One would naturally think I know how to dress appropriately and figure out simple fashion things like layering. I don't.

My mother, in particular, is irritated with my choices. You see, death didn't end her communication with me. My mom's ghost lives in my closet. And she doesn't use her inside voice when she talks to me. She is more like a news reporter who is standing in hurricane-force winds and yelling into a microphone about impending disaster.

She is really frustrated with me today. I tried on a light coral cashmere sweater with dark gray pants; she noted that the ensemble emphasized my boobs. I tried on a pink, white and black plaid skirt and coupled this with a striped white and pink shirt. It looked good laid out on my chair. In fact, it was sort of an interesting preppy look. Her verdict, I am too short to wear such a thing. My "canvas" wasn't big enough and therefore the outfit resulted in me looking squat. Not willing to give up on stripes, I tried on a sweater with subtle horizontal navy blue and gray stripes with a jean skirt. Simple enough, I thought as I walked toward the mirror. Her face reflected back: "Why do you even have this in your closet?" I took it off and kept searching for something with some flair, which is hard to find in my closet. You see, careful visual editing from my Mom resulted in the removal of all bright colors, pastels, pleats and bows from my closet long, long ago. She is so tough about her rules that these items seldom make it into a store's changing room with me.

The result: I have deeply buried any yearnings for wild colors, big patterns and most horizontal prints. My closet remains generally dull, full of funeral colors. I have timidly spiced it up with scattered slices of tomato red to ease the boredom. Mom taught me well and is proud of me; my closet has few exceptions to her rules. But she knows I mess up occasionally, so she is on call 24/7. Like all suppressed urges, my need for color, bad fabrics, mismatched prints and gaudy stuff still bursts out in other areas and does real visual damage. I shop for my sisters and fill their closets with every bold color, pattern and adornment I can find. They, too, have a body like mine and if they had Mom's ghost bugging them, they would be terrified of even touching those manmade fabrics. They have escaped her inspections, however. She seems to haunt only me. They don't escape the Mom look on my face when I see them wearing these type of items with too many accessories. I mean, come on, even I can bend so far.

Once in while, I have to break out. I crave more like a bad fashion junkie. A few months ago I went to an afternoon concert in Napa in a bright red flouncy embroidered top that fell off the shoulder. I'll admit now that it overemphasized my "assets" giving me the look of a DD porn star. I blindly coupled this with a plaid and striped patchwork skirt from a top name designer. This tablecloth of a skirt had enough material for maybe eight normal skirts. Its hemline was longer in the back than the front and it had a little bustle in the back giving me a JLo (remember when we called her that?) bottom. To finish it off, I added big hoop earrings and a chunky white and red plastic beaded necklace. The only thing I did according to the "rules" was to wear heels.

I heard Mom's warnings before I left. I had time to accommodate her screaming cautions, but I wasn't in the mood. I wanted to break the rules, her rules. I was feeling wild. I said to Mom, "Ha, what do you know? This is hip." She countered that it gave me huge hips and boobs. She told me it made me look even shorter than 5' 2". I told her I had heels on and that I was nearly 5'3". She said it didn't matter in this get up. She used the phrase "get up," which made me ask what century that phrase was from. She wouldn't be diverted. She said I looked 10 pounds heavier. I told her that I am old enough to know what to wear and what looks good on me. I walked out the door. I felt exhilarated. A burden was lifted. I was free of this superficial visual stuff. I was breaking a cycle one small step at a time. I beat the ghost! I won!

When I saw my friend's face, I knew Mom was right. To make matters worse, I had to walk in those 4-inch heels across someone's lawn to get to my seat. I kept getting stuck in the dirt and ruined the shoes. My skirt was so big it flowed onto the seat of the guy who was sitting next to me. He kept moving it away from his legs. He was handsome and offended. Obviously, he had no sense of humor so we wouldn't have gotten along. Obviously, he did have a sense of style. I tried moving the blouse down a bit to show some cleavage, a diversionary tactic that has worked in the past. The chunky necklace obscured the view. I took off the bauble and placed it in my handbag, but I couldn't close my bag since it was a trendy tiny one and each bead was the size of a lemon. I then wrapped it around my wrist for a big bracelet look. It was too late. I was a doomed, insecure fidget that day. I was a such a fashion don't!

The sad thing is, I know I will do it again. I can feel it in my veins. I am experiencing a new form of middle-age rebellion.