I spend many days dressed very casually. Life gets lived in that uniform -grocery shopping, banking, and any other obligation of adulthood.

When I’m really lucky, it’s pajamas and slippers all day. Then, other than an occasional from-the-neck-up video call, my daughter’s the only one to be graced with that particular sight.

Regularly, I also don my corporate garb, that professional-level assembly of clothes acceptable to the organizations where I teach and speak.

I’ve noticed something that has felt particularly poignant recently, for reasons I don’t completely understand. The same errands, the same running around town, the same interactions, go very differently depending on the me that appears there.

[I know this isn’t news to anyone. It even happened to Oprah. Here and here.]

It still surprises me, perhaps because I can’t see what is seen. I just know it’s the same me, with the same communication skills and dollar bills in my wallet. I don’t understand what is so different between the woman encased in yoga pants, with a bare face and wild hair, and the woman in a tailored suit with an up-do and eyeliner.

I can’t comprehend what would cause the amount and type of attention I receive to vary so widely.

I’m not referring to strutting down Rodeo Drive hoping to drop thousands on some exclusive goodie. I’m talking about dropping into the supermarket for apples and eggs.

An extreme example happened over two consecutive mornings. The first day, I was stopped at the checkout by a store manager who insisted on searching my cart. She barked an order for me to remove my reusable bags. I could only assume she thought I had stolen something.

The next day, the smiling, conversational cashier neglected to check the bottom of my cart. I waved at the manager as I strode out in my heels, designer bag, and a basket of unpaid groceries.

I’m writing books these days, as many of you know. A big part of what happens after those tens of thousands of words have been written, rewritten and polished to a blinding sheen is finding the appropriate images to make my book baby look like something people want.

In the publishing biz, it’s all about judging a book by its cover. Whether or not what’s on those pages is the great American novel, what’s going to get anyone to even think about it is the outfit it comes dressed in.

Oversized sweatshirt versus designer dress means everything.

I thank goodness for counsel in an area I have only rudimentary knowledge and the wise eyes that have helped me wrap my books in images I love.

Heeding their advice is both a necessity and a heartbreak.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs that content matters more than appearances.
That we should all be smart enough, patient enough, and insightful enough to disregard the superficial.
That judging anything or anyone by what is so easily changeable and inconsequential is a waste of everyone’s time.

It’s a pedestal I fall off of constantly.

I think of the store manager who believes her opinions about people are fact, merely because she’s had them for so long.

I think of the current trends to hyper-sexualize everything to get people’s attention. (My books are already sexy enough, thank you.)

I think of the mess our nation is in.

I am challenged, and often daunted, in the quest to reconcile the human habit of discernment with the damage of reactionary judgment.

I yearn for the important things to matter.

If only we could make what lies beneath the surface – the words, the themes, the kindness, the generosity – mean more.

And let everything else – the covers, the clothing, the skin – mean less.