One Way to Fashion

There was nothing that made my mother happier than a gloriously constructed coat, or a sweater with a happily odd pocket, or a skirt with architectural pleating. She was the daughter of a woman who got married in the color peach and who danced the rug into tatters, a hat wearer, my Scottish grandmother was, a woman who might wish to bet on horses, even as she attended her Presbyterian church with greatest faith. My mother learned fashion from her mother—the joy of it—and at Christmas, for my birthday, my mother could be relied on for some glorious box or bag (or two or three). Because of my mother's impeccable taste and ceaseless generosity, I—an incurable tomboy, a restless athlete, a sometimes loner—was (on occasion) fashionably dressed.

My mother entered the hospital around this time two years ago—the first of a serious of severe illnesses that would finally lead to her passing. Since then I've worn the old clothes, pulled them out lovingly for when the occasion required. Lately, though, I've felt ragged all the way around—sleeves fraying, colors wrong—and I realize: I do not know fashion without my mother. I don't have the taste for long shopping sprees. I don't have an eye for the patterns.

I wander by shops and stare into windows. I can't get a fix on who I, alone with me, will be.