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EXTREMELY rough draft excerpt
Nov. 13th, 2022 11:16 pmFrom the memoir-adjacent NaNoWriMo thing I am writing, if we are calling throwing words into a new document every day that have no connection to the previous day's work writing:
"That last one was the criterion that I examined first. In my experience, whenever I wore pants other than denim or corduroy, the pants became damaged. I remember being told to be more careful while wearing "nice" things, and I was. I climbed trees and played in the dirt as carefully as I could, and yet the nicer clothes still managed to be irreparably harmed. I did not understand that what "be careful" meant in this context was different then the "be careful" I was told when practicing carving wood with my pocket knife, or the "be careful" I heard when going outside to build snow forts. The latter two were admonishments to try to not get injured. The first one was a request to alter my activities so as to avoid damaging a material object. I do recall an occasional "don't climb trees in that dress," but I did not generalize it to a broader mandate to protect the clothes I was wearing.
"I did not understand until I was well into my thirties that I was culturally expected to take notice of my clothes at any given time, to evaluate their sturdiness, their age, cost, cost of replacement, ability to replace, immediate and short-term social situations for which these clothes were needed and the importance of the clothes to that event, whether substitute clothes of equal appropriateness were available, whether the clothes had been gifts and was the gift-giver around to see how I treated their gift -- there were so very many considerations! -- and to then adjust my planned activities to a course of action that would not damage the clothes in question OR to change my clothes, as many times a day as necessary, to wear clothes suitable for my activities. I was expected to do this every time I put on clothes and every time I was about to change activity, throughout my day, every day, for the rest of my *life.*
"Just writing all that out makes me start to cry. It is so, so much work, and it never ever ends."
"That last one was the criterion that I examined first. In my experience, whenever I wore pants other than denim or corduroy, the pants became damaged. I remember being told to be more careful while wearing "nice" things, and I was. I climbed trees and played in the dirt as carefully as I could, and yet the nicer clothes still managed to be irreparably harmed. I did not understand that what "be careful" meant in this context was different then the "be careful" I was told when practicing carving wood with my pocket knife, or the "be careful" I heard when going outside to build snow forts. The latter two were admonishments to try to not get injured. The first one was a request to alter my activities so as to avoid damaging a material object. I do recall an occasional "don't climb trees in that dress," but I did not generalize it to a broader mandate to protect the clothes I was wearing.
"I did not understand until I was well into my thirties that I was culturally expected to take notice of my clothes at any given time, to evaluate their sturdiness, their age, cost, cost of replacement, ability to replace, immediate and short-term social situations for which these clothes were needed and the importance of the clothes to that event, whether substitute clothes of equal appropriateness were available, whether the clothes had been gifts and was the gift-giver around to see how I treated their gift -- there were so very many considerations! -- and to then adjust my planned activities to a course of action that would not damage the clothes in question OR to change my clothes, as many times a day as necessary, to wear clothes suitable for my activities. I was expected to do this every time I put on clothes and every time I was about to change activity, throughout my day, every day, for the rest of my *life.*
"Just writing all that out makes me start to cry. It is so, so much work, and it never ever ends."