historical evidence

another day of c/gleaning

yields another blog post

about things i used to wear

~ ~ ~

this is mainly sequential,

in order of acquisition

& disuse

~ ~ ~

though this first

i place here

as evidence of

my maternal great-great-grandmother's

sensibilities

& mine.

a skirt i made in high school out of fabric from my great-great-grandmother's dress (see next photo)

i wonder,

do treasures remain so

if they are in dark closets

or on dusty bookshelves?

only a verbal reference

in conversation,

remember when?

or, rather,

does the use of these objects,

iterations of them,

permit the treasuring

a new life?

now back to chronology.

~ ~ ~

my memory of these anoraks

(which you can fold in such a way

that they fit neatly inside their own

front pocket)

is being lost

(lost, i tell you)

on the moors of England,

a steady drizzle of rain

(no surprise, that)

accompanying our trek.

we followed the power lines

to the nearest town.

i am no seamstress,

for i do not remember how to

thread the bobbin.

if not for that,

perhaps i could sew
by machine
rather than only by hand.

another skirt i machine-sewed (with my mother's essential guidance)

most of my treasured clothing is from college travels,

but this one is from an extended stay in Paris

when i was in tenth grade.

we lived in Cambridge, England, for a semester

(while my father was on a research sabbatical)

& swapped houses for a few weeks

with an American family

based in Paris.

this is what they were selling

along Boulevard Saint Germain

in the summer of 1983.

i, also, had pistachio-colored Parisian pants

at one point, but i have a recollection

of splitting the seam after

many years of use.

the summer after freshman year (college),

i spent five weeks

at a language immersion school

in Antigua, Guatemala.

guess i was into pink,

a color i abandoned somewhat

and am now reclaiming

(somewhat).

Guatemalan twin-set in bubblegum pink

i loved this shirt for a long time,

also from my Guatemalan adventure.

one of my favorite stores

during my university days

in chapel hill

was Anjana's,

a store where you could pick up

international clothing

for college prices.

my favorite pants, complete with tinkling bells

pretty sure i paired these two on occasion (ka-pow!)

unsure of where i acquired these,

but i wore them a lot.

('cause nair's got short-shorts)

i am still in awe of women

who have a consistent sense of style.

i am all over the board

(it feels).

this shirt (now much-faded due to much love)

received high praise from one such

that i admired in college.

& she expanded my color definitions

by proclaiming it

eggplant.

junior year

i spent

in Sevilla, Espana
(please pardon the lack of a tilde)

and acquired many a frock

with interesting accents

(of buttons, pleats, stitches, & ribbons)

clothing stores in Sevilla

were sparse, with free-standing racks -

a few articles of clothing

draped on wooden hangers.

not the stacks of folded garments

nor willy-nilly squashed together ones,

hung so close you must

heave an entire section

to your right or left

in order to extract or replace

but one.

i regret (mildly)

that i parted ways

with the platform shoes

purchased on the streets

of Madrid,

but they really were an impractical footware

(causing a walk a la Frankenstein)
such as cl-omp, cl-omp, cl-omp

one of my favorites

circa 1990/1

brown was a favored color

that year in Spain

& i fully embraced

my 'Color Me Beautiful'

Autumnal diagnosis

the most exotic place

(as in feeling,

in every sense,

the foreigner)

i've ever been

is Morocco

likely purchased in the medina of Marrakech

i finished the year in Spain

on a floral note

my most very favorite

May 1991

what i, also, wore that day

i lean strongly towards the measurement on the left

my hat-making phase

exhibit A

exhibit B, complete with ear flaps

i'll jump right over

the confusing mid-nineties

~ ~ ~

these last two

i wore while pregnant

both times i went into labor, i was wearing this dress.  i wore it other times, too.

a favorite silk flowy thing i bet i could still fit.  it appears to be see-through.        who knew?

so there's some proof

that i didn't always

wear t-shirts.