originally written in 2012

In the late 1980’s, I was a senior/executive editor at a professional/trade magazine. A friend and I were known by our family as “the fashion group.” I had achieved a personal goal of owning enough silk blouses to wear a different one to work every day for two weeks.

I also loved linen. I bought a luscious linen shirt from the elegant Paul Stuart. It was simply tailored, a heavyweight Irish linen the rich color of double cream. It fit me perfectly. It did have to be ironed, but I sent it out for a time. A long time.
Time passed. I moved on to an editorship. It was the best job, ever. The magazine closed, and in 1997 I began working from home. A lot of the silk blouses found other venues.

The linen, however, I discovered looked just as good and felt just as comfortable with jeans. I also discovered that if washed in cold water and hung in the sun to dry, it was not terribly wrinkly. In fact, with jeans, it made quite a nice hipster look. It was one of my favorite things to wear. For years. Even after a spot or two of tea took up residence below a button and would not come out.

Before Hurricane Sandy, I did laundry. When I went to hang up the linen, I discovered that blouse had begun to shred, all at once and nothing first, not along its solid seams but in the middle of the fabric.

Reader, I cut off the back panel and am thinking of turning it into a handkerchief. It is still a beautiful weave and a beautiful color. I have loved it now for nearly twenty years. There is just enough of it to make a story.