Back in the day, a good friend of mine used to say she was making all her old theater t-shirts into a quilt. Into the Woods, Fiddler on the Roof, You Can’t Take It With You: all there, in warm and snuggly knit, ready for winter nights.
A few days ago, inspired by purchase of a new skateboard, I dug through my parents’ garage in search of the wristguards I got during a rollerblading phase. Among other things, I found the chain-cleaner for my bike; steel-toed boots; a metric tape measure; a small pink baby carriage; a black widow spider (I think); a couple of magnetic flashlights; and not one, but two pairs of the rollerblades themselves. I’d forgotten I had two pairs.
Eventually I found the wristguards. I’d also forgotten how scraped up they were.
I looked at the things spread around me. I looked at the rollerblades & the steel-toed boots; these are not things that last if they’re not used. It was surprisingly easy to send them off to the charitable organization that would be making the rounds the next week.
Before I remembered that the wristguards were in the garage, I made a briefer foray into the closet of my childhood-teenage-high-school bedroom. In one end were two boxes labelled “Clothes to sort.”
The morning after I dug up the wristguards, I opened the boxes.
Again, most of it was surprisingly easy to let go. Query: am I going to wear velvet floral leggings again? Answer: I most sincerely hope not. Let’s help things turn out that way, huh? But at the bottom of one box I found them: Fiddler on the Roof, Jesus Christ Superstar, Class of ‘95, and a red tank top that somehow always wound up on my best nights out.
I’m thinking of making a quilt.
