“Are these your clothes?”

After 16 years we are having the outside of our house repainted. The painter, who wanted to access the upper dormer roof from a window in our closet, asked, “Are all of these your clothes?” No judgement, no laughter or dismay, just a serious, breezy question. I told him the closet was a museum of my past. “I didn’t take you for someone who would have a lot of clothes,” he said.

I do have a lot of clothes representing many decades of life and work. And, I have a penchant for holding onto these examples of my history and the clothing decorative arts of mostly the 1980s to the present. The offerings in my closet represent gifts from Tom, treasures knitted by my grandmother, friends who have dyed, woven, or constructed them, events attended, speaking engagements, costumes. Without them I would wonder what I did for 60+ years and who I am. They are an anchor in my quest for remembering.