spring cleaning

I may be a tad overdressed for writing tonight; I'm sitting here in a floor-length gown feeling a little constricted because I weigh a bit more than I did when I bought it. It was my waltz dress in college, when we had a formal waltz every spring and we always dressed quite appropriately for it. The gown is a soft navy blue, gauzy and flowy, and if you don't know just what an hour-glass figure I have, you would if you saw me because the way I fill it out now, it's hip-, waist-, and chest-hugging and really emphatic on my curves. I feel like a plump princess in it, and I also feel nostalgic, because I'd forgotten it existed until I dug it up in a pre-move fit of cleaning out my (rather overflowing) closet.

Packed with it at the bottom of a sweater box were other dresses of the same era—a long velvet drape I wore freshman year, a delicate black-and-red flowered slip dress I wore a few seasons later, a truly tiny little-black-dress I wore to the senior soiree and impressed even myself with the audacity of my cleavage. Tonight I tried on each dress again, and though they don't fit perfectly, and though they don't suit my style anymore, they are gorgeous pieces of fabric, and I decided that rather than toss them on the for-sale pile, I'd re-pack them into the box and let them sit another decade at least.

After all, when I was a little girl, a favorite pass-time was sneaking into the hallway closet outside my room and slowly unzipping the floor-length garment bag that housed my grandmother's dresses from the '50s and one precious older one—one of my great grandmother's. It was a thin layer of black gauze that overlaid an off-white slip; I would slip it over my head and shoulders and then feel the soft fabric cascade down around my torso and legs. I was the right height and width for it, at least until my body started to develop, and there was something about the musty smell and the crinkle of the fabric that captivated me. The royal blue Jackie O dress was equally fun to try on, and a less appealing plaid one couldn't be resisted at times. It tickles me to think that some little girl in the future might have fun pulling out my old dresses and admiring their feel and their look. So I'll leave them in the bottom of the box a while longer; I'll leave them there and hold on to the memories they recall just a while longer yet.

I was less sentimental about a heap of other clothes. True, I couldn't bring myself to throw out the brown velvet skirt that I would never wear now but twice in my 20s donned as part of a Brownies uniform on Halloween to great applause from all the men I encountered. True, I couldn't bring myself to toss the fleece vest I was given when I became a leader of the freshmen orientation backpacking trips in college, no matter how vile the bright red and purple of it seem now. True, I didn't even consider chucking my elementary school P.E. t-shirt, which still fits in a very snug and cute way, or the 1970s-era baseball-sleeved PBS t-shirt of my mother's that a few of you know too well. But to my surprise, I finally parted ways with my favorite t-shirt (from my semester in Maine in high school and veeeeeery saggy and old); a well-worn and -loved sweatshirt; my best hiking shorts before all the buttons began dropping off like leaves in autumn; a shirt I slept in for years; all kinds of mini-skirts that I am inarguably too old to wear now; and quite an array of other items. I do, in fact, have two large bags full of clothes to donate to Good Will and two stacks awaiting review by a friend who may fit into them before I try to sell them and make a few bucks off my bad shopping habits. And I have to admit I have those habits because after three hours of sorting and stacking, re-folding and re-considering, if you were to open the double doors of my very large closet now, you would find a much-better-ordered but still enormous collection of clothes. You would have trouble believing I had removed anything. But I have. And I have to say, it's at least the fourth time I have done a massive overhaul of my wardrobe, and most of the items in the for-donation pile have never been considered throw-away-able before!

It's funny the attachments we develop to things. Though my size has changed, though my style has changed, though the seasons in the place I live have changed, there were some items I didn't want to part with not because I think I'll wear them again (I am quite sure, in some cases, I won't) but because I absolutely loved wearing them once. Certain skirts, certain shoes, certain winter coats just make your day when you have them on, and it's fun to remember all the different styles that you've worn with a smile. Certain items recall particular experiences, too, like the sparkly skirt I first wore to an outdoor concert in downtown Boston (it was summer; it was evening; and I felt beautiful, with my tan legs and the silver strands in the skirt flattering one another) or the thick wool turtleneck sweaters I always wore in snow storms (snuggling into them as the flakes landed in my hair and on my lashes and on the soft collars that kept me warm) or the metal-buttoned peacoat that I wore when F. and I spent a winter making a digital film and he captured me, without my knowing it, in a scene at South Station, and in that scene I also had on my favorite shoes from back then, and I won't ever forget the shoes or the jacket because dressed in them I am featured on film for the only time in my life.

It's funny the attachments we develop to things. And it's funny how hard it can be to let them go, even when we know the memories are with us forever. What I found interesting tonight was that in some cases, just as I had outgrown the item, so had I outgrown my passion for the memory that comes with it. But perhaps that's natural; that's maturing.