Memory on Cloth

Clothes have always been important to me.  I can't claim to be a savant of fabric or design, and while I happily read several fashion magazines each month, I certainly can't afford to wear the latest in designer wear.  Vogue says Jason Wu off the runway? I say Jason Wu for Target.  In truth though, one of my favorite parts of the day is first thing in the morning, when I take stock of my mood, the weather, and the days activities and plan my outfit accordingly.  One of the nicest things one of my friends ever said to me, when I arrived at her house in a running-late flurry, feeling discombobulated and untidy, apologizing over my half planned outfit was: "In all the years I've known you, I've never seen you not look pulled together.  Ever."  It remains a highlight in my little queue of kind words shared.

I do this thing with clothes though, particularly pieces I'm especially fond of.  I tend to attach a specific memory to them.  Apparently this is not a recent development in my psyche, as my mother will tell you that I'm notorious for saying, whenever she mentions something that occurred years and years ago, "Oh, sure.  I remember that day.  I remember the outfit I was wearing, actually."  This memory association isn't necessarily a bad thing, of course.  I still look fondly at the sweater I wore through-out my backpacking days, ten years ago, and doubt I'll ever be able to get rid of the thing.  I know which dresses I wore to friend's weddings, I recall certain outfits I wore on important events in my life - big, like job interviews, and small, like meeting a new friend for dinner, hoping we become as good of friends as I imagine we could be.  Even when filling up a donation bag for Goodwill recently I had fond memories of the clothes I bid farewell to - the khaki shorts I wore while traveling in Costa Rica, the flannel shirt I'd worn up in Maine with friends, the one I'd accidentally shrunk in the wash once I returned to the city.

To me, clothes measure the passage of time in a sense, they help mark our days, our moments.  Who hasn't looked back at an old photograph and giggled over the fashions, who hasn't wondered aloud, 'what was I thinking?' when they discover a long-ago buried pants suit in the back of their closet.  The only problem I have with all of this is when a bad memory - or maybe even one that was good at the time, but somehow turned sour, is associated with clothes I still own, still want to wear.  This happened to me not too long ago actually, when I dug out a sweater I'd worn on what had been a great date...until it suddenly wasn't.  I happened to be out in California visiting my brother when I dug the sweater in question, bright blue v-neck piece, out of the bottom of my suitcase. 

"You know Steve, this is the sweater I was wearing on that first and last date I had with X."  My brother, ever loyal even when I'm probably talking about things far off his radar nodded, sympathetic.  I stood up a little taller in his apartment.  "But you know what?  I'm going to wear it tonight, our last dinner together while I'm out visiting you.  Because then this sweater is no longer the bad date sweater.  Instead, it becomes the awesome trip I had visiting my brother in Cali sweater."

And now, whenever I reach for that sweater?  That's what I think about.  My dinner on the pier with my brother, both of us eating crab legs and drinking Pacifico beer, before he drove me up to LAX to catch the red-eye flight back to Boston late that same evening.

Last weekend I spontaneously met at friend in Harvard Square on a Sunday afternoon to wander 'round May Fair.  I'd just returned home from a baby shower held earlier in the day, and in a rush to change and meet her, I grabbed a shirt I last remembered wearing on another date, one from this past fall, when I thought all of my romantically inclined stars had finally aligned.  I was caught off guard for a moment, for I had made a conscious effort to tuck away all of those recent fall memories deep in the recesses of my brain where I needn't bother with them again.  Still though, for a few quick seconds, that was what that shirt brought to mind.  Until I put it on and decided, no more of that weighted memory for this lovely plaid shirt.  Instead, it is now the shirt I wear on a sunny May day, when I'm off to meet a dear friend for ice cream...and maybe later, if we're feeling crazy, a glass of champagne.  Which is exactly what we did.