Remembrance of T-Shirts Past

There is nothing quite like digging in old closets, through shirts and sweaters like past shrift. A confession of sorts is in the hem and stitch of each garment. Myriad stains on white shirts mingle with frayed collars and dust bunnies. The shelves look forlorn in half-light. Those old clothes look alone even in abundance, each telling a different story about the minuscule and the larger. Moments are defined by those old shirts. So are basic daily decisions. Some are transitory and momentary. They are gone in months. They may fit wrong or remind us of a lost love. Perhaps they fall apart in multiple washes or bleach out in the sun. Some hang much longer, years even, before they are folded and put in drawers or donated to become part of other lives. They mean something more to us. Something as simple as comfort, as undefined as fashion, as amiable as a cool slogan or pattern. These things matter to us as we scan the tired folds. A new shirt is too clean, too loose, too inanimate. Not lived in like the worn jeans, the frayed and holey shirts that separate us from the tight-collared, buttoned-up working world others that pass us in the street. They form a greater tapestry than just a tired textile machine. Animate though mute, their stories compare to the lines on our faces and bodies, conforming to the reclines and contortions of our daily lives.