Memory and Control

Clothes have always played a critical role in my memory, and remembering them, or recalling where I was, and with whom, in a certain outfit, helps to anchor my past for me. I don't look to previous clothes as symbols of bad or good fashion or as relics of material culture, but rather as deeply personal expressions of self that I recall with affection. 


It continues to happen. Last summer, longing for the right pair of espadrilles that wouldn't cost a fortune, I recalled that I had exactly the right espadrilles back in the mid-1980s that I bought at a store called Tano, then on Main St. in my hometown of Ridgefield, CT. I remembered how they were hot pink, and had several strips of narrow grosgrain ribbon in green, yellow, and lavender across the top of the shoe, and how those narrow ribbons then tied around my ankle, like a toe shoe would in ballet. They weren't the most comfortable or the most practical shoes, but I'm hard-pressed, lo these many years later, to think of something cuter. 


What I didn't remember is that there was visual evidence of these fabulous shoes, so I was lucky to stumble upon this old photo the other day. Here I am in my living room at 13 years old in 1984, holding my foster sister Na Young Park and preppily attired in an Izod Lacoste shirt, some kind of Lilly Pulitzer-like skirt, and my beloved espadrilles:

These days, though, clothes don't just anchor my memories. Certainly, thrift store and consignment shopping has always, always been a sport for me, as many can attest. In high school I often used to show up for dinner at my friend Kate's house wearing my latest finds, one of which was once a strapless magenta Victor Costa dress. And I suppose I get something of a high from the finding, and from the "construction" of well-coordinated outfits.


Yet clothes have taken on a new significance in the year since my diagnosis, and I realized recently that it's all about control. If I have been reminded of anything over the past year, it is that control is mostly an illusion. Yes, I can and do make good decisions about diet and exercise and the like, but I cannot control when my tumor will start to grow again, as it surely will, despite last year's surgery and the wonderfully advanced radiation I was fortunate enough to receive. Cancer does not discriminate. Similarly, no amount of prenatal testing (not that I opted for any at all) could have predicted that my daughter would be born with severe meconium aspiration syndrome and spend the first month of her life in NICUs, learning to breathe and eat on her own. 


What does this all mean for me? Well, it's that I have accepted that I have to cede control over these big issues of life and death (literally), and will do so as long as I am able to exercise smaller controls such as choosing my clothes with care and loving my wardrobe perhaps more than I should. To do so, I believe, is an affirmation, and celebrates this fragile life in the face of my - and our collective - absolute and certain mortality. 


Two recent moving and brave, brave pieces underscored, once again, this lack of control; how truly living also means acknowledging that we are letting go. Terry Gross could interview a mute donkey on "Fresh Air" and I'd still listen - she's that good an interviewer. Her conversation with poet Marie Howe, who often writes about loss, was one of the most honest I've ever heard  about death, grief, and, to use Howe's phrase, "what the living do." Along the same lines, Emily Rapp's wrenching essay for The New York Times chronicles what it's like to parent a young child with a terminal illness. Rapp's son has Tay-Sachs disease, despite prenatal tests that (falsely) came back negative, and he will die before he is three years old. Listen, read, weep, and join me in affirming the beauty and difficult truths in each. 


To return, perhaps mundanely, to my own celebrations of self and life inherent in my wardrobe choices, here are some recent pictures of what I've been wearing:

The orange pants strike again in a little cord on cord action. 

Shades of brown in my all-consignment ensemble: Trina Turk capelet 

(as seen on "Gossip Girl" several years ago), Tory Burch skirt, and Sigerson Morrison boots

J. Crew cashmere sweater and turtleneck (consignment) 

and THE BEST EVER bright orange down vest by Lilly Pulitzer (Wheeler School clothing sale)

There may be things about cold weather that are really unpleasant, 

but not the lining of this vest! Lions and tigers and Lilly, oh my!

Finally, there is an apple blossom on the tree in our yard. It is the end of October, so it won't last - like so much - but it was too beautiful not to stop, appreciate, and document.

Namaste. 

Dress well.

Blue

Some albums suit certain seasons. 

For twenty years now, October has been the month when I think, "I need to listen to Joni Mitchell's Blue." (Caveat: last October, experiencing the existential fear and angst of a brain tumor diagnosis and emergency neurosurgery in New Zealand, I wanted as much escapist pop as possible.)

I don't recall what circuitous route brought me to Blue, which singer-songwriters then in heavy rotation on my CD player kept citing it as an influence. I knew of Joni already by that point: I owned her arguably more "accessible" Ladies of the Canyon album, which included "Big Yellow Taxi," "Woodstock" (covered by Crosby, Stills, and Nash) and "The Circle Game" (which has always sounded like it belongs in a montage in a Lifetime movie). And it seemed like every newly-minted "lesbian" on campus could quote the chorus to the song "Both Sides Now" off Joni's Clouds album.

Something was different for me about Blue. I only know that when I first heard the opening lines to "All I Want," with the repetition of "traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling" like the momentum of new love itself, I simultaneously wondered why I hadn't always listened to it and felt as though I had always known it. (This would happen again a few years later, when I first heard Joan Armatrading, an introduction that was equally overdue.)

It's an album full of deep melancholy and longing. Say what you will about the cliche of associating such emotions with seasonal change/falling leaves/crisp New England weather: it holds true for me, as I've been reminded the past few days.


But there are different kinds of blues, and on a truly different "blue" note, I got out the navy and white Ferragamo spectator shoes on Tuesday and wore them for the first time since early May 2010 (they've been carefully boxed, because I knew they'd never survive the tropics). These are one of my favorite ever eBay purchases, not only because they make me feel like I could dance like Michael Jackson or that I belong in this scene, but because they were only $30 or something ridiculous:

I paired these with another great eBay purchase, my Marc Jacobs wool pinstripe pants with the hot pink piping (just visible in photo above).

To top it off (so to speak), I wore a shiny Thomas Pink shirt with cufflinks from IMOOI that I bought in April at the RISD Museum Store the day after my first post-radiation visit to my new oncologist. Sometimes you need a reward - and sometimes you just don't want to struggle with the cheap nylon versions of "silk knot" cufflinks.

While I'll never have a collection of shirts like Jonathan Adler and Simon Doonan, ("covet," indeed! and Adler's belt!) these cufflinks brighten anything in French cuffs. Even melancholy me.

Soma

Textiles produced by Soma, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India

Back in 2002, Sam and I took a great road trip from Rhode Island through the southern US. The first part of our trip took us through Virginia and North Carolina. We spent a night with friends in Dublin, VA, who took us to hear local bluegrass music at a venue where women were flatfooting. We then drove to Merlefest and heard two more days' worth of outstanding bluegrass and Americana music, including a "workshop" set by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, who answered complicated audience questions like, "It sounds like you're using a modified drop-[XX] tuning in 'By the Mark.' Can you tell me how you came up with that?" 

Before we headed west toward Tennessee, we spent a lovely afternoon in Asheville, NC, where there was a shop that sold glorious hand-blocked textiles produced by the company Soma, based in Jaipur in the Indian state of Rajasthan. I was a little overcome by the selection even in that one store, but bought a scarf in pinks and greens that I wear to this day. While I realize there are many reasons to visit Jaipur, that lone scarf sparked a travel fantasy of textile shopping in Rajasthan. 

This fantasy will soon be a reality, because today we bought tickets to travel to a friend's wedding in Delhi in December. We'll be arriving a few days before the festivities so that we can go to Jaipur and I can fill up a spare suitcase with gaily colored fabrics like those depicted above.  

Cardi

Despite my love of many things Kiwi, I never did quite get used to New Zealanders' tendency to shorten certain words into precious diminutive versions -  e.g., "rellies" for relatives, "brekkie" for breakfast, "brelly" for umbrella. You get the idea. (I know it's not unique to NZ - this seems to be something they do in Australia, too.) 

So I won't call what I'm wearing above a "cardi" - especially because where I live, "Cardi" refers to one of these guys.

Still, this was one of those purchases that has proved more versatile than I thought it would. It's wool, for starters, and the bright tomato red color is not only cheering, but seems like something Anna Wintour would wear. I mean that in a good way - powerful, and like no one will f*ck with me. 

Shopping Guide: Tory Burch cardigan, consignment. Theory blouse, Wheeler School annual used clothing sale. Vintage Pucci bandana, eBay. Tory Burch bracelet, consignment. Earnest Sewn jeans, consignment. 

How do you measure a year?

October 12, 2011. Note ubiquitous Indian scarf - this one found on a field after a festival - paired with a really great find: a knit cotton top, made in Italy and likely Missoni, that I found at a flea market in Porto Ercole in July.

I don’t wear headphones when I run, preferring to find out what songs come naturally to my mind and body as I go. There are mornings when Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” sets my pace, and times when far less exalted music – such as K$sha’s “Tik Tok” – determines the rhythm of my feet on the pavement. The other morning, tired and coming up a slightly hilly home stretch, I found myself mentally singing “Seasons of Love” from the Broadway musical Rent. It poses a question: “How do you measure, measure a year?” And this is a question much on my mind, because somehow, it’s been more than a year since my seizure, and it’s now the anniversary of my diagnosis.

My friend Frances asked me recently if it all seems very distant. There are aspects of my time in New Zealand that still feel so close and familiar as to be palpable – even now, I’m certain that it’s ingrained in my memory how to get from Auckland Radiation Oncology to the apartment in Hauraki. I know I could recognize the creaky, croaky call of the Tui; remember how the volcanic island of Rangitoto dominated the view from shore at St. Heliers Bay and Takapuna Beach; can still see how the Norfolk Island pine at the end of the driveway was silhouetted against each night’s sunset. I remember the tastes of whole milk passionfruit yogurt by The Collective; Tawari honey; the hand-cut Dan-Dan noodles Jesse and I slurped by the bowlful.

Other details have blurred from those first days, if they were ever clear. I can recall the week between my diagnosis and my neurosurgery only in very specific snapshots and sensory memories: Sam crying by the elevator when we first left the neurosurgeon’s office; how Yani made a sage and browned butter sauce for pasta that first night. How both my father and Steve had the same first reaction to my news, when I called from Dan and Yani’s, which was to utter the word “Shit.” I remember hearing that my sister was traveling for work in Houston, and so was going to be with Jesse and his dad.

The weekend before I went to the hospital, we moved into a vacant furnished apartment that Yani knew about, and Carson took pictures of me and Sam on the muddy tidal flats where the mangroves held the shore in thick, twisted roots. They are, of course, the last photos I have of myself when my skull was intact, before it had a topography. At some point that week I lost a favorite scarf – it wasn’t anything special, just the cheap Indian cotton/rayon type that is ubiquitous among female grad students of a certain stripe. (But it was my ubiquitous cheap Indian scarf, and I had bought it in Kenya!) At some point I watched “Camp Rock 2” on TV and not only wasn’t even embarrassed, but kind of liked Demi Lovato’s voice. At some point my parents arrived. I think it was the day before my surgery, when I had my functional MRI, but I’m not sure. 

And then, oddly enough, things begin to come into sharper focus. Perhaps that’s because, by the time I went to the hospital, I was already beginning to come to terms with what was happening. The night before my surgery, I cried and prayed with Terry, a Methodist minister in Auckland, who would prove to be a dear and steadfast friend. The anesthesiologist, a stylish young woman named Kim, asked me about different health habits, including how much alcohol I typically drank in a week, and joked as an aside, “Probably not as much as me.” I wrote lyrics from the song “The Orchids” – covered by Califone – in my journal: And in the morning after night / I fall in love with the light.

I awoke in the recovery room after surgery and immediately made sure that, in my head, I could still count out the 6/8 time in Handel’s “O Thou That Tellest Good Tidings to Zion.” I related completely inappropriate sexual anecdotes told by my Samoan staff to the nurses in the recovery room. I had a lovely Maori nurse named Aroha (“love”) that first night after surgery, who offered a crisp "Cheers," every time I thanked her. (In recalling these memories, I am reminded of Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day,” in which she says she doesn’t know exactly what a prayer is, but she does know how to pay attention. Amen.)

But if many of these memories are benign or even welcome, the recent anticipation of the anniversaries of my seizure, diagnosis, and surgery has occasionally catapulted me right back to those times of uncertainty and fear last year, where I wasn’t sure how deep I’d fall, or how I’d climb back up, if I let myself really confront my own premature mortality. Thus I find myself crying a lot again this October, too, remembering, even though we’re home and it’s not a North Island spring but a New England autumn. Maybe this month will always remind me of what happened in October 2010, just as occasional twinges in my temples, or putting my head down the wrong way on a pillow, signal something in my body that reminds me: “brain tumor,” although that voice is softer now than it was then.

And yet I have been able to still that voice and to climb back up, each time, as I did then, thanks not just to my own resolve but in large part due to those who supported me then and throughout this hard and beautiful year, from Yani and Dan’s first hospitality in Auckland to my family’s travel and Sam’s sacrifices as a parent and partner, to Jesse shepherding me through radiation, to Terry’s visits every day in the hospital and every week after that, to the friends at home who let me weep over Skype and didn’t try to cheer me up, the friends who sent me scarves and hats and wine and cheese and bought me tickets to see Sharon Jones and countless other gifts of spirit and kindness. What I have found is what songwriter Jonathan Larson concludes in “Seasons of Love”: you can measure a year, or your life, in love.

Yours Truly

The Preppy Palagi, October 6, 2011

I love orange, and was thrilled to find these cords on eBay. I joked recently that the shades of orange in my wardrobe could be classified as "classic Penguin paperback," "Hermes," and "Cheetos." (To be fair, vintage Penguin paperbacks are not in a uniform shade of orange, so what is Nancy Mitford orange is not necessarily Gerald Durrell or Daphne du Maurier orange.) Nonetheless, any orange is a good orange. Just ask Lilly Pulitzer!

Shopping guide: J. Crew corduroys, eBay. Talbots blouse,TJ Maxx. Celine scarf, eBay. Tod's loafers, consignment. Hermes watch, eBay. Suede and metal belt, yard sale (25 cents!). Bracelets, South African tourist market.

Palagi

My time in the South Pacific

The Samoan word for "foreigner" is palagi. It's a word that connotes otherness, even if the literal meaning is closer to "cloudbreaker." Legend has it that native Samoans thought the tall masts of European ships were so high as to break the clouds - hence the name.

I lived and worked in the U.S. territory of American Samoa in 2010, and found that Samoans and expatriates alike used the term palagi with a lot of affection. (The "g" is pronounced "ng," as in "song.") I've therefore appropriated the term for this blog, in part because I welcome and embrace "otherness."

My life in American Samoa was rich and full. Then a seizure at the beginning of October 2010 led to a medical evacuation and neurological evaluation in Auckland, NZ. I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and underwent neurosurgery and radiation during a spectacular North Island summer. The people of NZ were just as welcoming and friendly as the people of American Samoa, and I consider myself most fortunate to have been able to spend 3 months in New Zealand, even if it was under really difficult circumstances.

I miss the South Pacific every day.


Why a blog?


Peer pressure, plain and simple.

My love of recycled preppy and classic styles has distracted me many times over the past year. Expect to see silly posts about clothes juxtaposed with more serious reflections on the state of U.S. healthcare, celebrations of the natural world, art that sustains me, and thoughts on life with - not after - cancer. (I chafe at the word "survivor," mostly because I still live with this brain tumor and probably always will.) 

I don't do cancer ribbons in any color, but I don't judge those for whom such symbols have meaning.