Material vs. sentimental value: I’m cat sitting in Bed Stuy for the next few weeks, which means that for the first time in a while I don’t have access to my entire wardrobe. This feeling is not unfamiliar to me as I spent most of 2024 living out of a suitcase and gallivanting around Europe, and even when I settled back in New York, a bloated storage unit hung over my head, filled with boxes and boxes of clothes that seemed absolutely necessary to me at some point but that I can’t even picture now (a metaphor for many things in life). The gallivanting was an excellent exercise in realizing what I actually needed from my wardrobe, which it turned out was quite different from what I wanted. I have always loved clothes, but I’m an immigrant with financially conscious parents, so I spent most of my pre-teen and teenage years reading NYLON and collaging on Tumblr, dreaming of the day I’d finally be able to dress the way I wanted to. When, in my late 20s, I gained access to some level of disposable income, I took great pleasure in owning things like the City bag I’d once bought a Canal Street dupe of using my high school babysitting money, the Ann Demeulemeester boots I’d reblogged more than once, etc. But when I’m forced to pare down my wardrobe — through gallivanting or cat sitting or both — I realize how I’ve transitioned from clothes as tokens of achievement to clothes as tokens of memory.
Today I’m wearing Acne loafers, nylon parachute pants from Juicy (a true Grail Item that are kind of falling apart and I wish they would make them again), my dad’s old Skid Row t-shirt, and my favorite Columbia hoodie. I could tell you easily what each of these items mean to me and why I love them; I bought the Acne loafers as a gift to myself when I reached a recovery milestone I was proud of. The Juicy pants remind me of the ultimate status symbol of my grossly wealthy middle school, which haunts me to this day (I’m of course talking about the velour hoodies with the “J” zip, which I spent many hours of my young life lusting after, which is actually SO ridiculous, why would my Eastern European parents have spent $100 on a HOODIE for a TEN YEAR OLD). The t-shirt was once owned by Jon Bon Jovi himself (I think my dad’s ex-girlfriend’s sister dated his personal assistant? Or something like that), and my dad was wearing it when he married my mom (they eloped! She was wearing yellow Converse). And the hoodie represents the few life-changing years I spent at a storied MFA program, where I both became A Real Writer and gained access to the Very Rich Very White life I obsessed over as a child, spending my days with the kinds of people who were so Thin and White and Rich that they didn’t even have to think twice about getting a degree from an Ivy League university that was of artistic, cerebral value rather than material (if the whole Very Rich Very White thing is interesting to you then you should read this essay).
Recently I saw a pair of Hogan boots I liked in Laurel Pantin’s newsletter and spent a week or two debating whether I should bite the bullet, only to remember suddenly that I had a similar pair by Frye sitting in storage. The point is that I kind of like all the same things I’ve always liked, but now I keep buying more and more expensive versions of them. Sometimes this is healing (the City bag), and sometimes it’s stupid (the Hogan boots, which thank God I didn’t buy). But now that I no longer have to make aesthetic decisions from a place of financial scarcity, it’s all the more clear to me how my intimate relationship with clothes and fashion is less about utilizing fashion as some sort of status symbol (a trap I think many people, especially immigrants, fall into) and more about building a wardrobe that serves as a tangible collage of my life (my cheap Columbia hoodie — lol, “cheap Columbia” is oxymoronic phrase but moving on — is as important to me as the pricey Acne loafers, etc).
Life is a necklace: I’ve experienced a lot of grief the last few years, beginning when my dog died in 2021. His name was Ralph, he was a vizsla, and he had been our family dog, but after my parents got divorced he moved in with me in Brooklyn.
My mom said he would tell me when he was ready to go, and I believed her because she tends to be right and because, really, he was hers. She called us her three water babies; me a Scorpio, my brother a Cancer, and Ralph, my other brother, a Pisces. And, as she tends to be, she was right. A few days before he went we were having a normal afternoon, me laying in my bed reading and him in his bed next to mine, breathing. By the end of his life his heart murmur was so severe that I could hear it constantly if the house was quiet enough, one chamber of his beautiful heart vomiting blood into the next, a metronome reminding me that time was finite, at least as I experienced it. Suddenly I felt him tell me that he was ready, that there were days when he didn’t want to go and days when he did. I looked up from my book and he was looking at me with his green eyes, alert. One of the best things about animals is that they don’t know what they look like, that they move throughout the world unaffected by whether they’re beautiful or not. But Ralph knew he was gorgeous. He was regal, placing himself above others without apologizing, asking for what he needed so confidently that he knew he’d receive it. And so later that week I let him go.
If you think I sound insane you’ve either never had a special dog, or you’ve never met Ralph. Either way, he was singular, and when he passed I felt a strange sense of calm. I knew that his earthly form was gone from the bed beside me, but he was with me all the time, and I knew that he would continue to show me that throughout my life. He’s sent me a lot of good things since he passed, and one of those things is my mom. Of course she’s always been there, as mothers by definition are, but we fought all the time and I’d accepted that we’d never really be friends.
I used to live my life compartmentalized. I had an array of hobbies and passions each with its own separate social life. I could pick and choose who I spent my time with according to how I wanted to be perceived that day, and share information about myself strategically in kind. It was a great way to ensure that I was well-liked, popular, and cool, and an even better way to ensure that I avoided any true intimacy in my life. When my mom and I fought I often accused her of not knowing me at all, but I see now that that was because I didn’t let her know me. Recently I encountered a small life stressor and I called my mom about it. She gave me some advice, I did as she told me, and later that day she called me back and asked how I was feeling. And a few days after that, she asked how I was feeling again. I’m describing perhaps the most basic exchange of care between two people but as it was happening I realized I’d never let her do that for me before. I’d never let her love me as a flawed person; I’d never trusted that I could make a mistake and still be seen as worthy of the next phone call. I now feel how much she loves me because I let her.
Recently I was talking about this compartmentalization issue with someone important to me and she said that the ultimate goal should be to create a necklace, with all the corresponding beads of a colorful and varied life collected on a string. My mom has given me that, with of course the accompanying irony laying in the fact that she built the string in the first place, that each bead comes from her.
What else can I tell you about my mom? It was her birthday on Tuesday. Like me, she was born in Budapest and spent her adult life living in London and the suburbs of New York. She speaks four languages fluently and is proficient in another three. She loves animals and babies, can read minds, is some sort of divinely connected witch who can’t sleep when the moon is full. She’s an athlete and a vegan who looks half her age. She taught me how to be beautiful, principles that I still adhere to: no makeup, just clean skin, neat eyebrows and eyelashes. Good hair is shiny and has volume. Outfits should be muted, navy, black, or white but never without a touch of sparkle. Aging is an honor rather than something to conceal. Women should eat breakfast every day, with either an egg or some yogurt. The best colors to have in your home and wardrobe are blue and silver. Other things I’ve learned from her; how to read. How to poach an egg. How to take care of myself. How to stop worrying. How to cure a bad day (call Mom, eat ice cream, go outside for a walk). Also; good men do exist, analyzing your dreams is important, and one should never be late. I’m grateful that it wasn’t too late for me and my mom.
Next week: the concept of “feeling so fly like a G6” and the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.
Love,
Vera x