Vintage Loves Lost, Part I 1996-1997

Much of the traveling I've done recently has been of the anxious variety. As such, I am prone to losing small pieces of myself, in haste, in overwhelm. When the hurricane comes for my pieces of land (thank you, btw Amanda Shires for your words and music, which have been incredibly present in my world the last 4 years), I can get to easily overwhelmed, paralysed by deep, gut clenching fear. I forget how to swim, how to not fight against the waves. I can't breathe and the ringing in my ears becomes louder than the screams and horns after that car bomb in Athens went off in 1986. 

This year, I've left a gorgeous perfect belt, a pair of orange cotton trousers and two (!!) Silk camisoles made of recycled silk saris. I think I left them at a hotel in Santa Monica in a haste of grief, packing up my two littles and 'not putting my oxygen  mask on first.' I know. I know. There was alot of that June 2021-  25 May 2022.*  

*(Yes...I have marked the date in my calendar. I will consider it a Yahrzeit now;  I've fully woken from a self-induced coma and have to claim my place at the altar of my own life, so to speak, leaving behind the sarcophagus of a past life. And no, it wasn't all bad. But it wasn't great and I often felt lonely in a way that I didn't feel even in the decline of my marriage.  

In on honour of that woman, I'll light a vagandle on the way, to mark the path so I know which thorns are tipped with Hemlock and Bella Donna.)

On this trip, I also lost an exquisite Liberty scarf that I think slipped off at the LAX airport and was gone before I could even backtrack. I think about the belt and scarf particularly. They sting, these losses, material (pun intended) as they are.  But they gave me a moment of pause to think about the material objects we shed at any given moment. You don't move 43 times and travel as often as I do, without occasionally leaving something. Sometimes, it is intentional, other times, collateral haste. Sometimes, you have a conscious purge, a Kon-Mari phase where you can let go freely. Other times out of necessity.

I have called and emailed hotels but they are no longer mine. I am taking time to accept this reality.  I have released them into the wild and one can only hope they are being cherished appropriately.  

But it leaves me pause to remember items I have loved and lost, or had to let go because of circumstance, baggage allowance, and life.  Recent such items include:  a lovely Marlene Birger DAY dress I bought in the sales at Selfridge's in 2019 for a song and wore on a....what was it? One person's date is another person's interlude, I guess. I don't think of it as a date  because the other person involved kept changing the date and times, arrived with no token (a flower, a hostess gift - again, I know, I know. But tribute is always lovely to receive, especially when one has gone out of their way to prepare a delightful feast, to pay attention to detail, only to have it ignored or brushed over).  This dress was fun and flirty: navy blue cotton with a pleated empire waist, a black grosgrain ribbon acrossd the bodice. It fell pleasing in a twirly A-Line. And it had pockets. But after this particular day in July, when I looked at it, I felt so sad, so disappointed, the only thing to do was rehome the dress.  Not the first perfect thing turned otherwise by misguided affections, to be sure.

Recently, I made plans along the same theme to rehome the sofa, start fresh. But then I realised the sofa is my perfect napping sofa.  And the person I most recently associate with it negatively is no longer a factor in my reality, so I can just recover it and enjoy that we can have movie nights where all 3 of us are snugged up with eventual space for that 4th special someone one and a smaller quadraped to join in. 

Plus, I had gotten tangled in rose bushes not once but TWICE on the walk with  pleated dress, the first thorns of which have left a physical scar, and the second batch a pinhole in the fabric, which I repaired. I have thought about finding or making  a similar dress, maybe in a different colourway. Time will tell other recent losses (due mainly to miscommunication)

2022 has seen the following go walkabout. 

*My travel copy of The Lone Pilgrim

*Pie Every Day (a cookbook, later, mysteriously returned)

* a pearl grey cashmere turtleneck

*A linen pale blue, navy, and beige striped jacket - oversized from the Linen Press that belonged to my Aunt (by marriage) Susan, which is the PERFECT Spring/Summer/Autumn sunny day jacket (and could be worn easily with the dress above, among other items)

*An Alyson Dawes original wide lapel shirt made of this exquisitely red Alexander Beauchamp chrysthanemum fabric. The pattern was one of Susans and Alyson used buttons from her own collection on the dress. 

These last two, I keep hoping I'll find in my storage locker or tucked away someplace 'safe.'  

Usually, I can backtrack to find my lost item, a skill I have honed from walking too often whilst reading or making notes.  I'm turning more towards a dictaphone app, but who knows that it will help keep me from distraction. 

1996 marked my first real experience with loss my own carefully selected things.   It was freshman year at Ole Miss.  I arrived at Stewart Hall (an all girls' dormitory) with 3 boxes of VHS, 12 boxes of books, and 5 clothes, along with two large suitcases and my duffle bag from Boot Camp.  My knee was healing but still reselmed a pummeled pomegranate. 

 My plan was to watch, read, and lounge fabulously in my dorm room, doing very little beyond that outside of classes.  I wasn't sure about meeting new people just yet. 

The parents left and my first bid for freedom was to buy a carton of smokes (eurgh, I know. And they weren't even Gauloises! They were Marlborough Lights, if you can believe that!). I watched four movies, ate mediocre food in the Student Union and sighed heavily when I was asked what sorority I was pledging.  I got a job at the Student Switchboard, then another at the Information Centre. Then a third job working at a dodgy pottery store, followed by a fourth at Coop DeVille, though the latter two were just fillers.  

* Spoiler alert/aside: I didn't but if I had, it would have been Delta Gamma, because I was supposedly a legacy, in the same way I am DAR and DAC legacy. Weird, isn't, that there isn't a DAU?** I mean...one person's revolution is another's rebellion, to be sure. Maybe I should have...knowing now how important the sisterhood is, the sorority system may not have been the worst thing this Shiksabelle could have done. 

** Further aside: years ago, I had the privilege of meeting the first Black member of the Sons of the American Revolution in 2014.  It was humbling. Michael Henderson is an amazing, inspiring man and Naval officer. 

Anyway, in the blue and white archives boxes was also my 'real' wardrobe. There were clothes I wore under 'normal clothes' that I would slip into and out off.  It was a mishmash of sheer antique blouses, cardigans, a shirtwaist or 5.  This was back when you could find Vanity Fair slips and 1930s tea dresses at thrift stores on the main racks.  In Dayton I was 

Frequent Shopper at The Village Thriftstore, St Vincent DePaul, the Salvation Army, Goodwill (the one in the Oregon District still holds deep affection for me), as well vintage shops.  Dorothea's, Feathers, Avant Garage...I had a car and a steady gig at the public library. In my off time, when I was not filling familial obligations, I could go wherever the heck I wanted, usually the main public library or bookshops, followed by any of the above. If I was feeling very brave? A coffee house. Near the private Uni.

I had amassed quite a collection of slips and vintage camisoles, tea dresses and vintage suits, as well as more contemporary ready to wear. Some 

were items that I had stolen, l or had purchased with funds off of my secondary market in stolen prom gowns. I know, I know. It was not a happy time in my middle class, middle America, white girl angst existence, but I can't change who I was. 

Halfway through the semester, I was told I would need to move into a shared room. I did try, but after a month of things going missing (including some of the items I had stolen; how DO you file a police report when the thing stolen is something you stole? Exactly.

The things that went missing that I still think about were:

*A slate grey Anne Klein silk trench coat

*A DKNY slip dress in fawn

*A Parallel black pinafore 

The things I had to rehome?

*An sheer ivory shirt with delicate embroidery that I was wearing over a camisole the night I was roofied and raped (R&R)

*The camisole from said R&R.

*The beautiful pink slip dress and and overdress my friend Alecia gave me to wear to my house warming in an apartment shaped like an Ewok hut when said rapist turned up at my housewarming because 'You're the kind of girl I just can't get out of my mind.'. It's okay, the rug burns on my back and the brusies eventually faded.  And I left Oxford, so...

(Alecia also gave me a copy of Love, Loss and What I Wore_, which I carried with me 10 different moves until it was ruined in a garage flood in New Orleans, alongside my Torah and my first edition of _The Dance of Gengis Cohn_ - the first 1st edition I had ever bought.

*the 20 inch waist jeans my dad had thrown at me, laughing. 'I'll bet you'll never fit into these.' I already could. For me, there was no Freshman 15 gain. I lost 27 lbs and came for the winter break a wraithe, curled into my closet until my high school bestie coaxed me out  for a rape kit and HIV test with cheesecake. 

The next term, these things were replaced. A favourite sweater, swiped from one of our Exchange students, that we wore among us girls.

A grey sheath dress from the French Connection, as well as a Helena Kaminisky black gently rounded fedora.  A pair of 9 West Mary Janes my grandmother later bought directly from my feet (you didn't argue with Juanita).

And really, that's enough for one year, I think.