OLD CLOTHES
When I was a child I wore the clothes my mother bought for me.
As a teenager I chose to wear clothes like the other kids.
In college my clothes were standard campus attire: Levis and a wrinkled corduroy sports coat.
As an architect I conformed to the accepted office uniform: Sports coat, Dockers pants, with a neck tie on an ironed shirt and shined shoes. I hated wearing neck ties and polishing shoes.
Teaching Architecture in Saudi Arabia offered an opportunity to wear more casual clothes: a short sleeve dress shirt and “sun tan” pants.
Now I am retired. I quit buying clothes, except I still buy socks and underwear. I wear the clothes I have accumulated over the years. I wear them until they fall apart. Holes in the knees, frayed collars and stains, all are acceptable now. I call them “work clothes” however I don’t limit them to doing chores or household repairs. I prefer to wear them all the time.
I have a spiritual connection with my old clothes. They have served my life well. Like me, they are showing wear and scars from our shared lives. Events like the time I ran an circular saw across my Levis, slicing them and gashing my leg.
Old clothes and old men are both made of fragile material. Old dry skin and old thin fabric both are easily torn by nothing more than brushing against the bark of a hemlock tree.
Old clothes provide psychic comfort. They are associated with enjoyable times: such as tending the garden, picking fruit, or doing projects around the house.
Style and expectations of others mean little to me anymore. Comfort and serviceability is what really matters. Perhaps my preference for old clothes is that old clothes allow me to be who I am. They convey to others that “I am not pretending to be anything more than an old man enjoying what is left of his life in comfortable old clothes.
Copyright October 2022 by Theodore “Tod” Lundy, Architect