StoryPeople Forum - StoryPeople Forum

linda gail · Messages: 1082

Mish - let your friend know you have the items left for your quilt. Creative types often make offers but don't push it because they don't want to push their talent on you. I bet she'll be delighted if you take her up on it.

Everyone: I'm loving your clothes memories. Keep them coming, please. I don't really know what brought patchwork generations out of me (it came after some tearful journalling). I do remember thinking about how everyone remembers what we were doing when monumental occassions occurred like when Kennedy died, when Reagan was shot, we heard about 9/11 etc., and I was thinking of what I was wearing when I remember some major moments in my life. Mine is chronological, starting with kindergarten. It was a strong memory trigger.

Believe.

sassyangelac · Messages: 1071 Location: Running On The Middle Path

When I was a kid I had to wear the same pair of jeans to school every single day for a year. I am not exaggerating. They were carnation pink, and thereby impossible to pass off as anything other than the same pants I wore the day before that and the day before that. For twenty years after this I imposed a pink embargo in my life and would not allow anything pink to touch my body, no matter what.

Then I became a runner and recently had to have a reckoning with pink after I became co-captain of a team participating in the Race for the Cure. When I started meeting and interacting with breast cancer survivors for whom the privilege of wearing pink is something nearly sacred, a whole buncha healing and growing started going on and a HUGE chapter just came pouring out of me and into the book I have also taken 20 years to start.

Pink and I have reconciled.

linda gail · Messages: 1082

Oh, Sassy. I totally get it. When I was 6 or 7 someone handed down their beautiful bright yellow (think schoolbus) dress shoes. Mom thought they were fabulous, and they were. I just felt like such an imposter wearing them. I knew they were screaming to everyone that I was wearing someone else's shoes because we never would have splurged on something so pretty and not functional even if we could have afforded it. As a young adult, when my family's financial picture improved, mom and I reconciled by going shoe shopping, something we still like to do. I like to think those tough times shaped us our strong character.

Believe.

Mallory · Messages: 878

LG - Its great to see you here

I've enjoyed getting to know you through the posts I've read since I stopped being MIA - and this one nearly had me in tears...

I've been spending a lot of time cleaning lately,
coming across

old notes from high school - dreams and friendships found, later lost

and old overalls... from middle school - what once was made fun of, now saved for my future children to laugh at. Overalls are so cool!

stacks of cards - received and many unwritten - from elementary school. A friend's neighbor worked for Hallmark and was getting rid of her collection, we could take whatever we wanted.

...I even found the card I picked out for my parent's 25th anniversary when I was 8 years old - just in time for the big day itself (Oct 15th, 2008!)

Memmmmory *Thinks of the Barbra Streisand song...*

and a stack of beautiful blank journals
every memory from cleaning, so full and mysterious
and then - there - suddenly - P O T E N T I A L . . . . . .

Peace in your hearts,
With the love of my soul
~Mallory

~*Music is the vernacular of the human soul*~

hecticeclectic · 25/10/2008 18:11:13 Subject: Re: my life in clothes

Reading all the posts here brought back a clothing memory for me.

When I was in high school, I was one of two girls on the debating team (probably due to my propensity for arguing lol). One particular Saturday, the other gal could not come to the competition because she had to be elsewhere.

I wore a black jumper with teeny tiny daisies printed all over, one my mother had made. And of course pantyhose. That becomes relevant in a minute.

The team entered the high school where the debate was to take place. It was a great wide open area, what we referred to in my day as the "common area".

I was nervous, especially because I was trying to impress one of the boys on my team, and I did not have my girlfriend with me for "girl talk". When I am really nervous I have to use the restroom.

Into the restroom I go in my printed jumper. I wrestle my pantyhose down and do my thing. I touch up my hair in one of those blurry half mirrors every school seems to have. After I have primped and convinced myself I can impress the judges AND the object of my teenage desire, I exit and strut semi-confidently back into the common area.

As I approach our team's table, one of the housekeepers taps me on the shoulder and whispers in my ear. I quickly return to the restroom. In my anxious state I had inadvertently tucked the back of my jumper into my pantyhose and a stream of toilet paper hung down to the back of my knees.

The boys had gotten a glimpse and never let me live the incident down. My girlfriend was sorry she missed my show.

I never ever wore that jumper again. And to this day I hate pantyhose.

Peace, Jo

Look up at the sky. Ask yourself, "Has the sheep eaten the flower or not?" And you'll see how everything changes.
And no grown-up will ever understand how such a thing could be so important!
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, THE LITTLE PRINCE

linda gail · Messages: 1082

That must have been soooo humiliating. But you survived it, didn't you! Thanks for sharing.

Believe.

linda gail · Messages: 1082

Yesterday I went shopping with my youngest - he's 12, the one who loves to wear sports shorts and t-shirts, the raggier the better. And matching is optional. He, all by himself, picked out some pretty plaid shorts and matching t-shirt. He was waiting for me with them when I came out of the dressing room. He doesn't look like himself at all, but maybe he's finally breaking out of the older brothers hand me downs and defining himself. It reminded me of my "Patchwork Generations' to wonder what's being handed to my guys.

Believe.

kathryn · 09/05/2009 23:42:41 Subject: Re: my life in clothes

This thread is more than a year old and somehow I had never seen it. Wonderful, interesting entries all...but the starter one especially, LG --- oh my. I am ALL CHOKED UP. Lovely!!

"Do not stop thinking about life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively, unless you choose a challenge instead of a competence." ~Eleanor Roosevent

linda gail · Messages: 1082

Kathryn - Thank you! It will always be one of my favorites. It pains some people, but it's not a painful piece for me. Carrying the past is only good for you if it helps you find the future you want.

Believe.

hecticeclectic · 10/05/2009 14:32:58 Subject: Re: my life in clothes

linda gail wrote:

Carrying the past is only good for you if it helps you find the future you want.

The things that make you say hmm.... I like that phrase, Linda.

Peace and Love,
Jo

Look up at the sky. Ask yourself, "Has the sheep eaten the flower or not?" And you'll see how everything changes.
And no grown-up will ever understand how such a thing could be so important!
Antoine de Saint-Exupery, THE LITTLE PRINCE

Mallory · Messages: 878

linda gail wrote:

Carrying the past is only good for you if it helps you find the future you want.

Goosebumps.

and

shivers.

Peace in your hearts,
With the love of my soul
~Mallory

~*Music is the vernacular of the human soul*~