Comfort clothes

Do you have comfort clothes? The kind that lift your spirit and warm your soul. Not just in the way they look or feel but the memories they hold.
I have a few. And once this experiment is over I plan to buy more.
I have had a very difficult and emotionally painful few weeks and at my lowest yesterday I picked myself up with a dress.
In recent times I may have just gone out and shopped. Bought something that didn't suit me or would remind me of the sad time I was trying to erase.
But this time I dried the tears and opened my wardrobe.
It was cold outside and summer clothes aren't exactly the right thing just now. But who cares?
I picked my favourite buy of 2007, a red dress from Joe Brown's. I have worn this dress to death. I love its defiant bright red stand against misery and the hippie style helps me forget my cares.
The dress was on the Joe Brown's Summer catalogue. I bought it in March and was waiting for the first warm day of the year to wear it. On a glorious unseasonably warm Saturday morning I wore it to watch my two youngest children play football. It made me feel excited about the summer to come. I wore it on a two day trip to Rome, standing in St Peter's Square listening to the Pope, soaking up the history of the Coliseum and the Spanish Steps.
And I wore it on the first and last day of our lovely family summer holiday to the South of France.
But to winter it up I grabbed my current comfort jeans from Next, a pair of Nike trainers and with a cardigan to wrap out I took the dog out for a long walk. And I felt better than I had for a long time.


It reminds me of a lovely song by Mary Chapin Carpenter (lyrics below).


This Shirt

This shirt is old and faded
All the color's washed away
I've had it now for more damn years
Than I can count anyway
I wear it beneath my jacket
With the collar turned up high
So old I should replace it
But I'm not about to try

This shirt's got silver buttons
And a place upon the sleeve
Where I used to set my heart up
Right there anyone could see
This shirt is the one I wore to every boring high school dance
Where the boys ignored the girls
And we all pretended to like the band

This shirt was a pillow for my head
On a train through Italy
This shirt was a blanket beneath the love
We made in Argeles
This shirt was lost for three whole days
In a town near Buffalo
'Till I found the locker key
In a downtown Trailways bus depot

This shirt was the one I lent you
And when you gave it back
There was a rip inside the sleeve
Where you rolled your cigarettes
It was the place I put my heart
Now look at where you put a tear
I forgave your thoughtlessness
But not the boy who put it there

This shirt was the place your cat
Decided to give birth to five
And we stayed up all night watching
And we wept when the last one died
This shirt is just an old faded piece of cotton
Shining like the memories
Inside those silver buttons

This shirt is a grand old relic
With a grand old history
I wear it now for Sunday chores
Cleaning house and raking leaves
I wear it beneath my jacket
With the collar turned up high
So old I should replace it
But I'm not about to try

[ More Carpenter Mary Chapin Lyrics ]