security blanket:home :: ex-boyfriend's t-shirt:love

this series of portraits documents women wearing their ex-lovers' shirts and talking about the experience of love (and love lost). i feel like i'm looking into a mirror on my own experience. it helps to know i'm not alone and i'm not a weirdo for doing this too. so much comfort in the feel of that soft fabric against my cheek, even if there isn't a person behind it any more.

i sleep with my ex-partner's shirt beside my pillow. i nuzzle into it at night when i start to feel sad, when my awareness shakes me awake and reminds me again that i'm alone. for some reason just the smell of him helps me feel better, puts me in a place of calm and comfort, makes me think of being in california with nothing but his old shirt in bed with me. he started it; the first time he went away to Turkey, he hid it under my pillow for me to find later, and i slept in bed every night with it wrapped around me, the sleeves around my waist or draped over my shoulders, and somehow through all of that it never stopped smelling like ben, maybe it smelled even better over time because it smelled like us. even though the shirt i have isn't one he left for me, i keep it close by as a reminder: you weren't dreaming, he loved you once, he lived here with you and now he's gone. you were a we once. you loved each other. this is all that remains.

"It feels like a flag I can’t stop flying. It comforts me in the meantime between the spaces. It’s just a rag I turned into a promise that he would never leave. Some sort of common thread between us. Part of me wants to rip it off. So many what-ifs and could’ve-beens and should’ve-beens and never-weres. It’s just a shirt. It’s been there for me when people haven’t. It makes me feel childish and taken care of. It makes me look a little stronger than I am. As long as I hold onto the shirt she is never completely out of my life. I’d wear it every day if I could. As much as you build a house around it or put a ring on it it’s all still temporary and dissolving so all you can do is love it. Even if it’s painful we need to hold onto something. Proof that we did it. That we went through it. That we learned something. That our hearts were broken. That we were loved. That we weren’t loved enough. For someone I won’t be something that will be so easily shed."

strange powers

i think my sense of smell is my super power. hyperosmia it's not, but i think it bears mentioning.

perhaps this explains my over-sentimentality, my strong nostalgia and sensitivity to the passage of time. smell is linked, neurologically, to memory. it is also, as far as i am aware, the only sense that doesn't dull with the passage of time. my eyes will eventually deteriorate until i'm blind, and i will deafen in my old age from listening to too much loud music, and even my sense of touch and taste will deaden. but smell, well, i hope smell lasts forever. even if i can't see, i could still find my way around a life full of memories, just by following my nose. existential whiskers, that's all i need.

cherry blossom

i emerged from the shower this evening, and opened up a bottle of lotion: "cherry blossom."

the name is misleading, it causes me to think more of fruit than flowers, so the smell seems surprisingly, almost overwhelmingly florid, rosy, clean. it is feminine, a womanly fragrance.

the smell reminds me of my mother, and watching her get ready for dinner parties when i was a little girl, standing in the bathroom of my parents' bedroom in her bra, her hair recently blowdried and swept to the sides of her face and ears. she has not yet put on her glasses, and i can see her face clearly, she never applies makeup. i watch as she gently pats lotion on her face, her cheeks rosy and flushed from the steam of the shower. the only beauty modification my mother ever used was perfume: she would dab it gingerly on her wrists, her neck, the crook of her arm. the scent would waft from the bathroom to the bedroom, and follow her wherever she'd go. after my parents left the house, the smell of my mother would always remain in the air, a trail of fragrance up and down the stairs, hanging in the air by the kitchen, lingering by the door where she stepped into her shoes.

since i was a little girl, my mom would always offer her perfume to me to try, to smell, to dab on my hands. she loved to buy me little packs of perfume, or obtain miniature bottles from the department store as trinkets, as if for fun. i always refused them. it wasn't necessarily the smell itself i adored. it was that image of my mom, standing in the bathroom, clean and void of any pretense in her appearance, my first idea of female beauty, and what i thought beauty (and my mother) smelled like.

so tonight, as i was applying dollops of this cherry blossom lotion to my skin, i was reminded of all these things and had to put the lotion away in a drawer, because the smell was just too close to that distant smell i remember, that it made me too sad to use it, and reluctant to grow into womanhood myself.

layer cake

night-swimming has become the one indulgence i allow myself every week. and it’s a good choice: it’s exercise that’s good for my bad hip. i like to secretly race the older macho men in their speedos, observe the human body as it moves underwater (the water aerobics class in the shallow water brings to mind images of elephants swimming, clumsy limbs thrashing through water), everything illuminated and given a milky glow by the underwater lamps, like submarine headlights. and at the end of my laps, i like to float on my back, my ears submerged in water, imagining myself out at sea in endless darkness, navigating by the stars.

the delightful thing about swimming, and perhaps swimming in a pool in particular, is that it heightens your senses. you feel reconnected to yourself, notice the movement of your own body, feel your spine lengthening, listen to and feel your own breath. you feel graceful and amphibious. and the low resistance silence provides such a stimulating contrast to the other 95% of my waking day.

the most alluring and troubling heightened sense? smell. chlorinated pool water has the magic ability of collecting all the smells from the surrounding day, and stacking them on the water, like layer cake. as my face skims the surface of the water for a breath, i open my mouth and suck in the potent smells of the day: sunlight and sunscreen, burnt tire rubber from LA traffic, manure and mowed grass, the charcoal smokiness of the barbeque down the street, leaves and a smell i associate with crickets, sweat, skin, b.o.

sometimes the smells are so thick and rich, i crinkle my nose, sneeze underwater, or get teary-eyed, like i’ve just sliced into an onion. other times, they remind me of the way it feels when you’re at summer camp, heading back inside over tall grass after a day in the sun, the mixture of grass and dusk creating a haze, and you feel safe lingering in it.

new lows

i am sitting on a towel on the floor of my bathroom, a pile of folders and papers and books beside me, trying to keep warm with a laptop in my lap and sitting as close as i can to the only heater in the entire apartment, a Thermodor built into the wall (i suspect my current use for it fails to meet its intended purpose – my guess being to eliminate bathroom odors? i dunno, that's based solely on the name and what i've heard about ppl lighting matches after taking shits: i was told the flame "burns the bad air" so you can't smell it any more, but i always thought that didn't make sense and was bad household science. anyway...)

i'm 2.5 weeks away from a blissful retreat to my home state, and only a few grad school projects away from the end of this forsaken semester, but this lump of (forgive me) shit before me is too huge to surmount, it seems. i am teetering on incompletes for 2 of the 3 grad classes and it is so fucking cold in my apartment right now, i can't get anything done. it's either crawl into bed, or sit on the floor of the bathroom next to the heater. and so it goes...

i'm fighting nausea and panic and utter depression and lack of excitement, and all from the floor 2 feet away from a fucking toilet. thank cheeses i'm the only one who uses it and i just cleaned it the other day, or this would be a really long miserable night indeed.

to the future!
-stephan!e

maple leaves

"oh please God bring relief
even if it's only brief
she says that we were just make-believe
but I thought she said maple leaves...
... and when she talked about the fall
I thought she talked about the season
I never understood at all."

- Maple Leaves [mp3] by Jens Lekman.

that's me three years ago, enjoying a wallow in the leaves with friends.
this became an annual tradition for me and a few friends, oh i miss it so!
[photo credit Se4n.]

i got an email from my friend Sara tonight. she gave me an update on the goings-on back home, the activisms i've left behind, and she spoke of the leaves in the Fall and how spectacular they are. i can hardly believe it: one season spent away from home and i've already forgotten what it means to have an autumn, to feel the weather change and to trade in flip flops for boots, to bundle up and enjoy a walk with crisp leaves underfoot, the smell of summer leaving the leaves, the smell of air pressure changing and the way the woods get damper and colder and the smell of the rocks on the trails.

i miss all those things. i was just thinking about the last week of school last year. i remember one night walking out to my car, it must've been close to midnight, and the stars were out and the moon was brilliant and casting crisp light onto the treetops, and the wind was perfect, just chilly enough to justify wearing my jacket, my hands grateful for the large pockets. it was hushed and peaceful that night, unusually calm, i think finals were winding down and everyone had worn themselves out from studying or partying, or had moved home early. i remember pausing in the middle of the parking lot, craning my neck to stare at the sky, trying to remember what the immensity of that moment felt like. it was perfect. i wanted to live in that moment forever.

i miss the way weather affects my mood. in LA, i don't have good days just because of the way the sun is shining differently (because it never varies) and i don't get to appreciate the way the wind feels extra comforting one day over the rest. i miss those fall days when the weather is such a seductive companion, stealing you away from your work, abandoning work that always remains, always accumulates, to enjoy fleeting moments of sunshine and breeze.

her email made me homesick. i miss the feeling of fall. here, it gets cold enough to make me enjoy my bed's warmth, to make it harder to get up in the mornings, but when i get off from work, it's still 90 degrees out and smoggy. i want to live in a place where the seasons change.

-stef

p.s. i wrote this post with the hope that some of you could send me photos of the changing leaves. it would help me to remember home. send to free [dot] radical [dot] lee [at] gmail [dot] com. thx!

introduction

i can't stop listening to this song by Voxtrot. it fits my mood and the way i've been feeling lately, like flipping thru a stack of polaroids you found tucked away, all sepia tones and childhood memories, a feeling of loss and recovery – "i won't know how much i've lost until i've gone away."


i imagine all my childhood memories – raking leaves and jumping in the piles, taking bike rides to the park with my mom and dad, picking apples in the country on weekends, hanging Halloween decorations in the yard, the brisk chill of getting in the pool at the end of the summer – flashing thru a projector, reflecting off a screen and flashing on my face. there is jumping, there is running, there is dancing, and there is laughter.

it's getting colder as it slowly turns to autumn in LA, and i am having vestigial memories and longings for the changing leaves, cool breezes and indian summers, the look of grass (of bluegrass!) and the smell of my neighborhood at dusk, and the look of the sky, which somehow i remember seeming closer to earth and looking softer than it does here, where it is far away and tinged with gray, immense yet distant and always revealing itself to make me feel small and alone.

i listen to this and imagine driving home from school to surprise my parents, imagine stepping my foot in the door and seeing them emerge from the living room, running to hug me. or i imagine blasting this in my car late at night, as i drive thru the deserted streets in oxford, ohio, to meet a friend for drinks, to crash at someone's house for a sleepover, to go to my boyfriend's house and sit on the couch and talk. it's a rush to feel at home again.

this is music that makes my feet move. they want to hit the pavement, to start running, to put pedal to the metal and drive drive drive, to find endless roads and listen to this on repeat. as the music picks up, i get closer and closer to home.

-stef

---

"Introduction" by Voxtrot
Open your eyes and stretch your hands
This house is clean but it is not my home
Did I make this bed
The two hands touch on two

Sometimes I think of some place colder
The sound of traffic and the way it's worn
When you feel yourself grow up inside of here

And you love me just like a stranger
But you love me just like I am

Remember we ran through lovely streets
We made our rules and then we broke them first
It felt like we were running all the time
When I wouldn't give one ugly moment
I'd wrap it up, I'd keep it in my sock
I can keep it, yeah, I know what's yours is mine

And you love me just like a stranger
But you love me when

I step into the sea, it let's me love some other day
We get bored of weakness all the time
Now I won't know how much I lost until I've gone away
Your sun sets when my sun starts to shine

summer breeze

sitting on my bluff today, watching the sun set into a line of fluorescent smog (or whipped mountain top), my toes digging into powdered dirt and sand while my hands feel the bulge of dinner and overindulgence in too many cups of milk and hibiscus tea settling in my tummy

the air is perfect, the breeze on the edge of this cliff smells and tastes like salty sea air, if i close my eyes or unfocus them on a distant point in the mountains beyond the city, i forget that i am not on the keel of some tall ship, the gentle rocking of the earth below me like the pulse of soft sea waves at night

it's a feeling i wish i could knit into a summer sweater. i don't have much use for sweaters in the heat of summer, but sometimes a sweater is just what you need, you know? the interwoven tangled wooliness reminds me of hands, delicate fragile veiny old woman hands, remind me of my grandmother and toggle buttons and pastel pink rabbit hair yarn, and remind me of the sea, somehow. i think it goes like this: when i was little, i was fascinated and horrified by the story of the Titanic. i was terrified of the sea and of boats and of drowning, i imagined sinking - my lungs filling with water - was the worst way to die. but then i insert a small pink sweater into the scenario, and there's warmth, there's temperature control. the sweater has pockets for little hands (somewhere there are mittens waiting to be matched) and a hood with ears, and the smell of home and dry coziness. i imagine floating on icy water all night waiting to be rescued while my grandmother wraps me in layers and layers of hand-knit sweaters, and it's like she's building me an island beneath my feet to stand on.

i don't need a life preserver; i just need something soft and warm.

+ smells!

in continuation of my Venice Beach post, i was delighted to find in one upscale boutique a display of Chris Brosius's I Hate Perfume collection. i thought CB's scent philosophy was so fascinating, i always resented the fact that Brooklyn was such a far distance to travel, or that modern technology hadn't discovered a way to transport scent across the internet.
my favorite was Winter 1972, maybe more the concept than the scent. i love the idea and the way the smell kinda helps me put that memory in mind. that's all i really want in a bottle of expensive scent, anyway. i'm not buying the commodity, i'm buying the memory...

the interesting thing about CB's perfume is that, despite how much i love the concept, i have absolutely no desire to buy it for myself. and, i think, ppl who do, totally misunderstand CB's perfume philosophy. to them, it's still a perfume; those memories aren't their own.

i wish instead that CB specialized in bottling those scents we wish to keep, and that you could commission him to travel to your home and sit in that closet with you, taking deep breaths, and he'd write in his notebook the ingredients he'd need to distill this place into a scent: aged fur, your mother's leather purse, the silk scarves from Spain yr father bought yr mother when they were dating. the smell of untouched old clothing and what you've always supposed is the smell of moth balls but still aren't quite sure. the smell of tarnished metal jewelry and belt buckles, the smell of soft light sifting thru plastic garment bags and winding thru sleeves, a sliver of light shining on your face as you sit on the floor of your parents' closet, your arms around your knees, pulling yourself in tight and feeling hugged by all your parents' clothing, hanging down around you like a willow tree. (we'd call this one "In My Parent's Closet, 1990-2000").

if i could, i would create scents named after particular instances in my life, like "April 2007-Spring is Almost Here" and "May 2008-The Summer is Almost Over." and they would remind me of love and precious, urgent friendship, the smell of humidity and muggy Oxford air, the swan pond and sunsets on the roof, sunlight thru tree leaves in the woods and the sweet warm smell of cottonwood blooms lining the streets of Oxford and the smell of sprinkler dew lingering on the grass at night. and i would create another: "Every Summer Before This" and that would smell like sunlight shining in thru curtains and blinds in my room at home in Lexington, old dusty books and wood wax, sweat and pool chlorine and my mother's homemade lemonade and the smell of gas grilled steaks and crisp romaine in a wooden bowl with blueberries and freshly cut apples. and lightning bug luminescence after a summer evening rain, bare feet on soft carpet, VHS tapes, tennis balls and tennis shoe rubber, sunscreen and sun-exposed skin after a cold shower, and my bed at home. the smell of softness and peace.

and there'd be others i'd want bottled too, like "The Windate Writing Center - At Night" and "Serious Relationship #2". and there'd be another called "A Hug", which would be the smell of someone you love holding you tight, your face buried in their chest or your cheek against their neck, and the smell of their laundry and their hair and the warmth of their skin thru their shirt. and there'd be another called "Bike Ride - Spring/Summer/Fall/Winter & Lexington/Oxford/Suburbs/Woods/Chicago" which would remind me of open air and my hair blowing around my face, and the excitement and anticipation of adventure. clean, crisp air filling your lungs and your hair, billowing your clothes like a parachute around your body.

with fond memories and olfactory sensations,
stephanie

on the intimacy of clothing: an analysis of what's in my drawers

yes, that is my closet, but i hardly wear half of it. really, the middle shelf is all i wear and the rest are keepsakes. read on...

i'm sorting through my desk drawers at home. oh desk drawers. they're so fun to clean! don't you agree? drawers are like the limbo of office supplies and personal effects. if they get shoved into a desk drawer they're probably on their way to the garbage, but for some reason, you decide not to toss it just yet, and hide them away in the back just for yourself to find later when you're trying to cut down on all your material possessions.

i read an essay or short story a long time ago about a middle-aged man confronting the reality of his father's death. he realized he never knew his father in the way he wanted to, and now, after his father's passing, was trying to reconstruct his father's life from his possessions. in the story, the author finds his father's wallet tucked away in a nightstand drawer, and clutching it close to his heart, tells the story of the object: how its edges were worn from everyday use, how he imagined it snuggled close to his father in the back pocket of his jeans, the smell of the old leather (isn't it amazing how that smell never completely fades?), imagined the stories that wallet could tell: all the places it'd been, the kinds of things his father bought, the touch of his father's hand, the pace and rhythm of his walk as felt from a jeans pocket (i remember the story being particularly striking to me when i read it, however many years ago, b/c of the significance of the wallet being so close to his father's bum, tucked into a pocket and nestled beside his father's buttock - something so peculiarly taken for granted and yet so beautifully described that it made me wish more things could be kept in back jeans pockets.)

of course, i read that story a long time ago, but something about it lingers with me still: the idea of closeness, how use and physical contact transforms our objects into possessions. old shoes, worn and hole-y shirts...

one of my friends said recently that the idea of our bodies conforming to our clothes made him squirm. at the time, i imagined a body with the qualities of a liquid, taking the shape of its container (we are, after all, how many %'s water?) i imagined a huge fat man (or woman) squeezing into a pair of pants, and afterward, the shape of the flesh when it was declothed - the lines pressed into skin from pant creases, the bulge of stomach fat demarcating where the extra flesh flowed over the top of the waistband. yes, that was gross. but now i imagine the opposite, and think of our bodies shaping the clothing, stretching them thru wear and use, the touch of skin lingering in the fabric, the warmth exuding through the fibers.

i guess this explains my penchant for taking people's clothes. i love borrowing worn clothes. while packing and sorting through my closet for things to donate, i found a pile of clothes i'd borrowed indefinitely from my friends. almost every close friend of mine is now missing a shirt, a pair of pants, mittens, a hat, a sweater... i've kept them all this time because they really do have emotional value: i feel safe when i put them on, like i'm wearing a hug.

example: my friend John and i had a mud fight on the lawn behind Shriver Center my junior year. it was one of those spring nights when the trees are just days away from full bloom, and it was raining (i love the way night-time spring rain smells. the smell of cooling daytime pavement and saturated dirt and leaves). we got completely soaked, so we jumped in the fountain. it was wild and wonderful. we went to his house afterward and he lent me a t-shirt and a pair of old corduroy pants to change into. the pants were a little too small for him and they were a little too big for me, but i loved them. i put them on and felt like a little kid playing dress up. a week later, i gave the t-shirt back, but i never returned the pants. that summer, i packed his pants in my suitcase bound for Mongolia and wore them nearly every day (you can see, i'm wearing them here) - the air was so dry we hardly ever changed clothes.

i also have my friend Brittany's brown cardigan sweater. it doesn't fit me very well (the shoulders are bunchy), but i still wear it occasionally and hope that maybe, just maybe, it will fit this time.

i have piles of my mom's old clothes, which i love to wear and think about the prior life they had. was this the dress my mom was wearing when she met my dad? is this the skirt she wore out on their date when he proposed? i found an old color block sweatshirt that belonged to my mom which i wore all the time when i was in elementary school. i spilled acrylic paint on it once in art class and cried for almost half an hour in the bathroom when i realized i'd stained it and ruined it forever.

and i feel cliche about it, but i love wearing my (ex)/boyfriend's clothes. i found one of my ex's old t-shirts in the closet. i loved sleeping in it. i haven't worn it in about 2 years since we broke up, but i still appreciate its softness, and the smell, which i swear, still reminds me of his apartment and the Writing Center.

my boyfriend Ben lent me one of his shirts the other day b/c i was cold, and even though it didn't fit me too well (the sleeves were really long, it hung off my shoulders, the neck was really low), when i wore it, i felt safe and warm, like he was holding me close - closer than would be physically possible with just our arms alone (sometimes i wish i could pull someone into me so tight, and eliminate all the spaces between us, the way you can pull a shirt around you and your body heat fills in the remaining spaces in between). i thought of all the times i'd seen him in this shirt, the way it hung on his shoulders, the way it felt against my cheek when i hugged him, and how much i wanted to be able to take that feeling with me to L.A., when we will be half a globe away from each other starting in the fall. lucky for him, i didn't decide to steal it right then and there, though the thought had crossed my mind.

borrowing clothing is a really intimate act, like sharing a personal space with someone else. think about it: getting into someone's pants (literally, rather than idiomatically speaking, that is). walking in someone's shoes. wearing your heart on your sleeve... i'm out of examples but i'm sure there are more...

this is why i hate packing. i always go to my closet convinced i am going to cut down so much of the stuff in there, that i'm gonna donate half of what i have and make room for new things. but, i always end up putting things back on their shelves. i just can't bear to throw them out or give them away. my dad chides me for being over-sentimental, but he doesn't understand! - this is love i can take with me and tuck away in drawers...

with love and a pair of hand-knit mittens,
stephanie

it's a saturday and it's sunny and even tho it's cold, i'm feeling cheerful.

the smoke from the neighboring coal plant is casting huge swift shadows on the nature theatre outside my window and it's making everything feel sped up like in a movie.

i don't know why i'd never noticed before, but the white tree beside my window (perhaps a birch?) is a popular hang-out for flocks of these little brown and green speckled birds, and i was delighted this morning when i looked up and saw a bunch of them hopping around on the branches, sitting real close to each other, cuddling but being silent. i like having a tree so close. sometimes when i look up and see only tree and sky, i can pretend i'm living in a house amid clouds. i wonder if L.A. has birch trees and little speckled birds... (perhaps palmettos and seagulls instead?)


i've been sleeping in and sleeping well. i haven't taken the time to appreciate how wonderfully comfy and cozy my bed could be, but i lay down last night after a fairly long week and just felt so happy to sink my head into fluffy pillows and sheets. sometimes i get homesick late at night, and the smell of laundry reminds me of home and i feel safe.

i've been thinking lately about how much time i spend in front of the computer, or the TV (eventho i don't watch it, it seems to always be on around me!), or just listening to music or the radio. even in the past week, i've watched nearly a movie every other day (i told myself i'd try brushing up again on my film history, and since i didn't get to fit a film studies class into my schedule this year, i'm deciding to do an unofficial independent study). but i've reached the conclusion that i'm constantly over-stimulated! i never even had an email account until i came to college! i didn't get a cell phone until i started driving, which was when i turned 17 and started working at the State Hospital, a mental health institution on the edge of town. now, i check email practically every hour of every day, my computer's always on (i don't even turn it off to sleep any more) and when i'm not physically at the computer, the music is blasting or the TV is turned to CNN so i can watch the presidential debates.

well, today i woke up and brushed my teeth, ate a blueberry muffin and drank some herbal tea, all in the silence of my room. after i write this, i am shutting the computer off, going out to the library to return some books and some DVD's, and then finding a nice quiet place to study and get back to my senior project.

from now on, i think the weekends are going to be minimal technology days for me. yes, that sounds fine. and, i'm going to start book-binding this weekend!

have pleasant week-ends,
stephanie

catching up

dear friends,

all the studying over the weekend must have worn me out. i went in to take a practice GRE, yesterday, and started falling asleep. i really struggled getting through it, and it wasn't even a real practice (there were no essays, but 2 verbal and 2 math). nevertheless, looking at my results now, i did better when i started falling asleep. so, maybe that's reassuring? i got a 1300 overall. *shrug*

i came home to plant a tree, join some friends for a cook out, got sick from the smell of burning processed meat, then went on a breezy bike ride with Young William and my friend Kathee. i forgot to tell you, i've been learning to ride without hands, and it's one of the most gratifying experiences of recent memory. learning new physical limits, that's something that doesn't come around a lot, you know? i feel like a kid again, wanting to scream, "look Ma, no hands!" can i show you some time? mayhaps i'll join a circus...

we came back and did gymnastics in the hallway. Dustin and Wendell visited. then we sang songs and rewrote some CCR for better wages. i munched on crackers until i fell asleep at 12... maybe 1? and i just woke up (10:45??!! ack!!), just in time to write and remember i have a meeting with my professor.

always catching up...
-stephan!e

my rendition of CCR here. [mp3 - yousendit]
the quality is shit: the acoustics in my room are poor, the mic on my laptop is not a good listener, my voice is weak, and the guitar is thumpy. but the intention is there...