Do you really want to gain insights into where you’ve been and what makes you tick? Clean your closets and trunks. (I have, just off my vanity, a huge walk -in closet complete with shuttered windows, shelving and slide out drawers- plenty of room to store a lot of “stuff.”) Last night my husband finally decided to sleep in the basement, as at 2 a.m. I was still up sorting and pitching. I could gauge my gradual weight gain (and recent loss) by the piles of old and new trousers and blouses and tops in varying sizes. Of the larger sizes, each pile included that one “comfortable” piece I was going to wear only until I lost enough weight to get back into the size I had been. Of the smaller sizes, each stack included one or two new pieces with tags, my “motivation” for getting back in shape. (Now that I am down forty pounds, I find I have enough pants and tops of a certain size to see me through fall, winter and spring without ever having to do any laundry….I’m afraid if I continue to lose weight, I will be a walking museum of 90’s era clothing.) Mixed in with stacks of my own clothes, I unearthed Grandma’s flapper-era slip that I just cannot let go of. (The detail work and hand stitching is exquisite. I actually wore it until just a few years ago.) Grandpa Basinger (gone since 1967 or so) still has a fur lined hunting cap propped on my closet shelf. The hideous scarf I “knit” for my late dad almost fifty years ago (using a primitive, handmade loom of boards and nails) is still wrapped in tissue in my antique trunk. I’ve held onto more than one of Larry’s polo sweaters from work. (In the early days, everyone who worked at Henry’s Restaurant wore a sweater or t-shirt with his caricature silk-screened across the chest. On some of his “bustier” waitresses, his face looked stretched and distorted (-;) I have jackets he wore as a member of the Black Swamp Players and a vest and bow-tie he donned as the (by far) youngest member of a local barbershop group. I still own the yellowed gown my great-grandpa wore for a formal portrait (from back in the days when young boys still posed in skirted clothing until they were “breeched” [or rather put into breeches at age five or six after being dressed in petticoats since birth]). I preserved a sleeper or tiny t-shirt worn by every one of my children as an infant. The long, modest cotton gown hand-sewn by Brad’s grandma for her wedding night rests amongst my treasures, as do the kid leather, buttoned gloves worn by my mom after she’d slipped out of her wedding gown and into the lovely two-piece tweed number she wore to exit her wedding reception. My closets and my trunks are a reminder of how gradually and easily I “let myself go.” They are a testament to my sentimentality, as when it comes to pieces once worn by others, I find I can’t let go….
Posted on: Mon, 27 Oct 2014 16:30:38 +0000