Green Shirt

Up in the attic tonight I was rummaging through the Rubbermaid containers labeled "Joanne: Summer" and I realized that like that wooden box in my desk, my attic is filling up with clothes I don't wear any more but with which I can't seem to part. There's the usual: one wedding dress, one maid of honor dress, and two prom dresses; but then the collection digresses. Going back 20 years there's the dress I wore to my high school graduation, which would probably be unmemorable except that I made it myself - with a lot of help from the Home Ec teacher. It's in a box with the "Elvis collection" featuring the faux red crushed velvet pants I wore to Las Vegas, and the pink dress I wore to Graceland. Also in the box is the shirt I wore to my one and only Grateful Dead concert. Think my kids will ever want to envision their mom at a Grateful Dead concert much less get a good look at the shirt she wore?
Then there's a bunch of stuff without as much sentimental value but with a lot of "just too cool to throw out" appeal. Several vintage dresses and tiny sweaters with three-quarter length sleeves, a vintage red, white, and blue sequined sweater that I thankfully, never actually wore anywhere. I have several wool skirts that my mother made and wore herself which I also wore, a skirt I made and wore, a sweater my mother knit me that I feel to guilty to part with, and a box full of concert t-shirts (mostly from Billy Joel concerts).
The attic is also the current residence of an assortment of vintage hats, several that were worn at my wedding and which used to hang in my now non-existent sewing room. There's still a chance I'll hang them in the bedroom, I finally hung up all my shoe paintings after seven-plus years of living here so it's possible the hats will be next.
The clothes in my attic don't include some items that are still in my parent's attic like a faux leopard-print swing coat and 1950s flower-print dress from The Garment District in Cambridge. That ensemble I wore to the Metropolitan Opera House. There's a full-length wool coat that was my grandfathers and a black dress with a big bustle that belonged either to my grandmother or my great grandmother. Somewhere I have photos of Aletha modeling it.
Unlike the business cards and wallet-sized photos in the little wooden box, the clothing take up a significant amount of space. After careful consideration and a long walk down memory lane, I decided I couldn't part with a single item.

song: Green Shirt • artist: Elvis Costello