Sometimes I think my life is defined more by the things I don’t like than by the things I do. I don’t like office buildings. I don’t like malls. I don’t like overhead lighting. I don’t like cinnamon brooms, mean people, Southern food, Febreeze or the drone of a TV set in the background of anywhere. And I don’t at all like that nip in the air that announces the coming of winter. That nip has arrived.
Because this is Chattanooga and not Antarctica, there will many more comfortable, even warmish, days ahead. Knowing this doesn’t comfort me. In resignation to the inevitable coming of winter, I switched over my closet this morning. Goodbye, age-inappropriate sleeveless shirts of unknown airy material in which no woman, no matter her age, has ever had a hot flash, ever. Into the bottom drawer you go with the supportless strappy sandals and the tankinis and the cargo shorts.
Dana ShavinHello, asymmetrical thigh-length black sweater I bought last year to try and cheer myself up midwinter, because as everyone knows, you can’t be unhappy in anything asymmetrical. Hello, gray wool hat with flowers I wore all over Amsterdam last spring, because although it was supposed to be warm and sunny, it was cold and rainy, thus making you the mascot of travel-related, bone-chilling disappointment. Hello, collection of nearly identical maroon sweaters, of which there are, inexplicably, too many to count.
I know that some people (many of my friends included) revel in the change of seasons. They eagerly bid adieu to the careless, hot kisses of summer and just as eagerly welcome the warm embrace of nubbly hats and nearly forgotten about sweaters. I have never been those people. Someone might as well have served me biscuits with gravy on a cinnamon broom for all the joy I felt when I was finished changing out my wardrobe. Because my closet looks less like the celebration of a new season and more like a funeral in the Gulag.
It’s going to be a long winter.