Nostalgia

Dear Flannel Shirts

Remember the 1990s when we first met?

I bet you never get tired of thinking back to the 1990s, when we all had you in our closets, next to our grandpa-style wool cardigan sweaters like Kurt Cobain wore on MTV Unplugged.

Or maybe this was only true of closets in Seattle? I don’t know what the rest of the world was doing when I was in high school and college. I was too busy reading books and watching old movies to have much awareness of trends (I know even less about trends today, but I don’t mind).

I managed to collect you second-hand, without even trying, starting when my grandpa cleaned his closet and my grandma thought I might like to have you. I put that first one of you on every morning for years like a bathrobe, already soft and worn-in from years of grandpa’s use.

People gave a variety of you to my dad for his birthday or Christmas, though he wore navy blue hooded sweatshirts instead, the heavyweight ones with insulation for working outside. So he didn’t mind when I borrowed and then kept you.

I did eventually buy a couple of you brand new, in colors that I’d been wanting, but it felt like something I had to do quickly so as not to get caught in the men’s department. I’m not sure how all the other young women managed to get hold of you — maybe from their brothers or boyfriends, maybe from thrift shopping (which I hadn’t gotten into yet), or maybe they didn’t care if anyone saw them buying clothes labeled as menswear.

I cared because my mom said people were going to think I was a lesbian if I wore you all the time. I didn’t think I was a lesbian back then, even though I never had a boyfriend to borrow a shirt or anything else from.

She only said it once, and she said it offhand, but I was so used to nobody noticing me out in the world (with my nose in books and my weekends at the movies) that I didn’t know what to do. Still, I knew I didn’t want to quit you.

So I had to learn from you and your lessons to be both soft and durable, to carry on even when a little tear might appear in the fabric.

Look at you: you’ve never had to be high fashion to be functional. No matter what anyone might say, you aren’t going anywhere like some flash in the pan.

I buy you for myself now, openly, whenever I want, and nobody says anything, except to sometimes offer a compliment when I find you in a color or pattern that especially suits me. Thanks for always being there, waiting with your empty sleeves for me to button them around my wrists or roll them to my elbows, whatever I might prefer.

P.S. I imagine you’ve noticed that my mom wears you now, too, from the women’s department at Eddie Bauer. It was one offhand remark from thirty years ago. She had my girlfriend and me over just the other day to do an art project together as a family. Don’t you worry. :)