Purple MuuMuu Phenomena

By Nancylee Bouscher

She found me on the eve of my 49th birthday in the aisles of Bella’s Voice, a tiny, funky thrift store in Lynnwood dedicated to helping animals. When driving south on I-5, I hit a wall of traffic, quickly exited and found myself outside their compact space with a very large photo of a goat on the front. Say less. I bolted through the glass doors. She was hanging on the over-crowded rack with just the shoulder of her floral pattern peeking out at me with a flirty grin. Be still my heart. With a dramatic arm sweep, I made room to view all of her glory and discovered her to be a purple muumuu, a comfy style of dress typically associated with Hawaiian culture, with a $5.99 price tag, hand sewn seams, and pockets. Deep pockets too, not consolation prize-size pockets, but real pockets for real hands and real things like keys, lip balm, and things you pick up from one place in the house to move it back to its correct place in the house. I knew immediately that the whole universe had conspired so I could bring this oversized housedress of freedom back to the Magic Skagit. She now lives amongst us all. You’re welcome.

You may not have a purple muumuu (yet), but you have one of her comfort-clothing-cousins. It’s a warm hug in textile form. Could be sweats, jeans, a sweater, a bikini. Point is – you have something that you rush to put on when you get home from work. You have something that your skin rejoices in feeling. You have something that takes the edge off. Feel free to substitute your something whenever you read “purple muumuu,” however, my professional advice is that you go buy a purple muumuu and come back to finish reading this because…

Today is Purple Muumuu Day! Aren’t you glad you got one!? It hasn’t been officially adopted by the world outside of my head, but there’s nothing stopping us from making that happen going forward. So here are the rules: first, you wear the muumuu all day. You can add to it… sweater, yoga pants, noise-cancelling headphones, but it must be your main piece of clothing, if you chose to wear clothing. The moment you take off the muumuu the rules stop applying. This is obvious, but I just want to be clear that totally different rules apply to Naked Days.

Second rule of Purple Muumuu Day, if there’s something that cannot be done whilst wearing the muumuu, it shalt NOT be done today. Sounds more official when you state rules with “shalt.” Most things can be physically done in a muumuu – she’s empowering with all of that flowing energy, however, doing anything that you consider “uncomfortable” should be avoided. This includes paying bills, answering your phone, and errands to any place where sporting a purple muumuu would cause alarm or internal feelings similar to those of your teenage stress dreams when you show up in History class in something embarrassing…like a purple muumuu. (Side note: The Co-op is a purple muumuu friendly. I have tested this many, many times, and not only are the muumuus welcome, they are admired and celebrated).

The third and most important rule is that anything you eat while wearing the purple muumuu is healthy. For example, in between therapy and a teacher conference call eating a piece of the Caramel Apple pie from Willamette Valley Bakery with Alden’s Vanilla Bean ice cream sprinkled with Navita’s unsweetened cocoa nibs and the smallest pinch of Frontier’s smoked alder salt from our bulk section while sitting on the couch in the bright and brief bouts of afternoon sun is IN FACT nourishing every bit of body and soul in a way that no salad, smoothie, or stew could ever or has ever. Purple muumuu = optimal health food.

Working at a food co-op, and shopping at one for years prior, I have a lot of thoughts on “eating healthy.” Shortly after graduating from college, I was diagnosed with Graves’ Disease, an autoimmune disease that impacts thyroid function. I saw the doctors and did all the things from scans to prescriptions. I also sought out other perspectives on thyroid health and decided to limit certain foods for several years as part of a treatment plan. In today’s terms, it was an anti-inflammatory diet. Back then, I usually described it based on what I didn’t eat: dairy, meat, wheat, sugar. Yes, this included alcohol. I made exceptions for stout, salmon, and butter when the opportunity presented itself. Otherwise, I mostly ate lots of veggies, whole grains, tofu, beans, and eggs. It didn’t hurt that my boyfriend at the time was a creative cook that loved a challenge, so I rarely actually lifted a pot, although I did scrub quite a few.

Sometimes, I still romanticize this period of my life as being a really “healthy eater”, possibly because I did feel really good. While I do believe that my body reached balance more quickly because of my food choices, I also now know that twenty-something childless me actually did have a lot more energy. It was rewarding and felt good, so I defined it as “healthy” even though I didn’t yet have a purple muumuu. Turns out, that being in your twenties and having all your meals cooked for you has similar effects as wearing a purple muumuu.

While at work, I’ve had countless conversations about food choices, and that the reality is many people don’t have a lot of food choice for a variety of reasons. I’ve had loads of people explain to me, in detail and with alarming confidence, the horrors/benefits of this/that and how their lives were saved/ruined by this/that. I have also been this person, and I’m sorry! It’s so easy to make the jump from “this feels healthy to me” to “this would be healthy for you” when that’s not how it always goes. There are different definitions, individual dispositions, real barriers and, as we previously learned, you must be wearing a purple muumuu to really optimize the healthiness of food.

Cedar & Colee

Years ago, I watched a very focused woman hold a crystal pendulum over several of our baked goods... skip this paragraph if you’ve read this one before… until deciding, based on the swing of her guide, that the Bear Claw was the optimal choice. Yes, the Bear Claw clawed its sticky way to the top of the food choice, stumbling by the dense bran muffin and the classically trained scone. Was I perplexed by this choice? Absolutely! Then I thought, maybe when I am post-menopausal I can somehow transfer the power of my purple muumuu to a sparkly gem on a ribbon. Bring on the hot flashes!

Here’s the plot twist of the Purple Muumuu Phenomena, or PMP, as science will one day refer to it: even though the muumuu covers our body and blesses the food we feed our body, it is not actually about the body at all. PMP soothes your worries and performs her magic on the part of you that is infinitely juicier and more interesting than your body. Can we name that part of ourselves that cannot be contained by skin or defined by beauty? Your spirit, your soul, your spark. I’ll never stop being shocked at how much time, energy, and money our world spends on our bodies, like it’s the best thing we’ve got going while we ignore the golden core of our beings just because it is so rarely seen by others.

My theory is that part of why shopping at the Co-op feels so healthy goes beyond the organic and local offerings; it feels healthy because supporting a community-owned grocery store does also feed our spirit. We like buying bananas that Eric stacked into a pyramid while laughing and grinning. It matters that Colee brewed up our coffee with the same magic mama hands that paint beautiful murals (with her trusty co-creator Cedar) all over Skagit. There is something more in your meal when you unpack it and remember the shy but sincere smile of a new cashier. Wait… has the PMP effect somehow morphed into the SVFC effect?! Maybe healthy food is anything that comes to your mouth with a sprinkling of good intention? And that is the core of your Co-op. Maybe the 50 years of determination to build commerce outside of a broken system that has proven that putting profit before people perpetuates pain has elevated your groceries just a lil’ bit? Feel free to join the experiment and see if you enjoy shopping at the Co-op just a whisper more than other grocery stores knowing you are part of the ongoing cooperative revolution to care about each other. Healthy doesn’t even have to be about “me” or “mine”. Maybe healthy is about US! And our Co-op is all about us. Remember, everyone is welcome, especially if you wear a purple muumuu.