When Clothes Become Friends

There is this thing that happens to a person who lives in a part of the world with four distinct seasons. You become attached to your clothes according to weather patterns—clothes for winter and clothes for summer and those few clothes for the times in between when you aren’t exactly sure how to dress.

At the sign of the first frost, you dig out your sweaters and pants made from weighty cotton, and they are all like old friends. “Hey, I remember you, you sage-green poncho thing that fits me like a welcomed blanket.” You shove the light-weight stuff to the back of the closet and make room for the winter stuff, the heavy stuff, the comfort clothes.

But your affection for these clothes turns on a dime, like your affection for your favorite food that you eat too much of and suddenly can’t stomach for one more meal, and you can’t wait for warmer weather so you can bring out the short-sleeved shirts and your favorite summer pants, those flowy linen ones with big pockets. And as for that sage-green poncho thing, you begin to see it with objective eyes, and you realize it doesn’t fit you like a welcomed blanket. It fits you like your grandmother’s nubby old cardigan with linty mints in the pocket, and you’d just as soon burn it as stow it away for another season.

And that’s when you know it’s spring. Time to hang up the coat. Time to dig under the bed for your sandals. Time to dust off those flowy linen pants you love so much. And time to shed the ill-fitting sweaters, no matter the comfort they brought you on chilly days. They’ll be waiting for you come October, about the time you discover you’ve come to hate those linen pants and wish you could incinerate them and their big pockets.

"I seriously hate writing bios for myself, so let's just say something like I'm a freelance writer with a small-town-newspaper audience and an amateur French horn player and that nothing I enjoy doing ever earns me any money. Or just leave out the money part. Whatever you want."