Through Deaths and Marriages, to the Ocean on Both Coasts of This Country

How clothes aren't always just clothes.

Me, Lola’s Bar, Costa Rica, circa 2006

A woman named Langley gave me a cashmere sweater 13 years ago. 

It has a mock turtleneck collar and it buttons all the way up the front. The sleeves are extra long and it is the softest of softs. 

When I moved back to the Bay Area after a decade in Costa Rica, I couldn't get warm. I would cry from the pain of being bone-cold day in and day out. I would go sit in my car, an oven from the sun, windows closed, heater on full blast to try and feel warm from the inside out. 

I won't say that sweater changed my life, it's just a sweater. It has, however, been on my body for a large percentage of the time I've been back in this country. I've worn it on planes, under sweatshirts and jackets for weeks on end, sometimes to bed. It's like a child's favorite toy, except it's wearable. It is also now, and maybe always was, a shade too small. When it was given to me, I weighed 15 pounds less than I do now and it puckered just the tiniest bit at the button across my chest. Now it strains at all its buttons. But I don't care. I don't wear this sweater for show, I wear it because it's comforting.

I've run into a problem though. It is wearing out. The sleeves are threadbare at the elbows and in little triangles under each arm. The brand still exists, but they don't make this style anymore, so I've tried to buy an exact replacement on Poshmark or Ebay, to no avail. I found one in brown, but the seller never shipped it. I sent her a love note, because I have an inkling something went awry in her life. There are bigger problems than my sweater wearing out. 

But even if I find one to replace it, it won't really be the same, will it? I want this sweater to go on and on. I've worn it to places I love, with people I love, through deaths and marriages, to the ocean on both coasts of this country. 

A squirrel made a nest in the tree in our backyard a few weeks ago. We watched her struggle with a twig longer than her body and tail put together. She tugged it up the trunk, through the leaves and branches to a crooky spot where she'd already amassed enough to start the base of her nest. I marveled at how she instinctively knew when and how to create this masterpiece. She saw the value in an outdoor throw pillow on one of our lounge chairs, tore a hole into it, and collected some of its stuffing. I wasn't mad, I was impressed. How did she know that inside would be the perfect lining for her babies?

This sweater feels like that. A lining I've been wearing all these years as I process the trauma of my divorce, the traumas that came before it. I feel like I was given a precious piece of stuffing to keep myself safe and cocooned until I was ready to be out in the world, in my own skin, warm and open.

I want to replace this sweater, or try and repair it. But I wonder if maybe it's time to move on. To wash it one last time, fold it gently and place it in my box of keepsakes. The things I no longer use in my daily life, but which have a place in my heart so deep they need a proper resting place. One I can visit when I need solace or a reminder of where I was, so I can be firmly where I am now.

This feels like a time of beginnings, a time to let it all go, and start as newly as one can at 50, with all the memories that come with age, roots entwined with painful mistakes, choices of unmatched joy.

I want to stop reaching for clothes to define me, to stop thinking that the next blouse or jacket or pair of jeans will finally make me the person I want to be, someone other than myself. Someone who is loved, treasured, wanted. Someone who has her shit together. Someone who knows what she loves, and manages, most days, to do a thing that fills her up with peace, a thing that brings her joy.

I want to be that woman. The woman who meditates and prays for goodness to win out over evil. The one who sees the kids’ drawings on the sidewalk, imploring the passer by to skip or twirl or dance, and then does those things, not caring if others see her – maybe even hoping others see her and do the same. 

The thing is, I am that woman. I have been for a long time, but sometimes it takes the brain an achingly long time to catch up with what the heart knows, has always known. 

One of the author-mentors here on Substack, Sarah Fay, invited her readers to post a subject they wanted others to write about. Cierra posted, "Why do we care how we present ourselves?"

It's a subject that's been on my mind for most of the past year. How we dress speaks to who we are and how we are. What we've lost, what we're going through, how much energy we have to mask ourselves, to redirect attention away from the things we want other people not to see, how much time we have or don't have.

A woman responded to Cierra's questions and said, "In recent years I rejected the notion that how we dress matters, and that it's just superficial, but I think that's linked to my loss of identity in motherhood." Another commenter said, "I'm always in the same long sleeved shirts and pajama pants due to my medical condition but I'm sure people look and stare." 

But, while we often think our identity is our bodies, is how we look to ourselves and others, is our self. It is not. 

Self is so much deeper than what we wear. How we dress is just one facet of trying to communicate with the rest of the world, of trying to connect, to say here I am, and here is what I believe, or what I'm stuck with, or what I can do right now in this moment, in this way. Or here I am, do you fit into my tribe or should I exclude you from it? A deep seated, primal need for exclusion and inclusion. Safety. Family. Home. 

Anne Kadet is quick becoming a hero of mine. At first glance, I thought her 10-year commitment to wearing a uniform of her choosing - all black pieces, one outfit for spring and summer, one for fall and winter – was intense and unfathomable, but now, I'm considering creating my own version, because I think she's on to something subversive and brilliant.

What if I knew myself so well, loved myself so much, that I could not only bear, but enjoy, the freedom of wearing the same outfit day in and day out. An outfit that let other things speak for me: my presence, my voice, my heart.

And what if, by not dressing to impress other people, I could connect more deeply with myself and the other humans around me?

Dressing as an act of radical vulnerability. Warm, from the inside out.

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This post was inspired as part of Sarah Fay’s Friday Office Party. Cierra, who writes Living Lately, said she would like to hear from others as to why we care about how we present ourselves. Make sure to visit her Substack!

Hear more from

Anne Kadetor read about her uniform

Read one of my favorite pieces on dressing from Farrah @Substack

Other pieces I’ve written about how we dress:

• I Knew How it Would Look

• What Steve Jobs, a Red Dress and Feeling Safe Have in Common

• The Outfits that Define Us