Putting together photo boards for a funeral offers a unique case study in human emotions. Warm, fuzzy good time memories give way to grief’s sad cousins, and eventually banal repetition of birthdays and holidays dredge up that slinky, guilty feeling that you’re not taking this death thing very seriously, are you?
If you’re loved and lucky, you’ll be in a lot of the photos, too. Which means looking at yourself over and over again in various states of sartorial sophistication.
In my case, I’ve never been as well-dressed as I was as a little girl with long, mouse-brown hair. My grandmothers and aunts doted on toddler me, taking great care to make sure my mom outfitted me in coordinated looks complete with accessories and adornments. My hair is babyfine, like my dad’s, and it tangled easily. A rat’s nest, he called it. So, the appearance of my little brother in the photos coincided with the loss of my locks and frilly socks, which became too impractical for a family of four.
I don’t remember thinking much about my childhood wardrobe except feeling like an outcast when my mom started shopping in the women’s section for me while I was still in middle school. (For a much more complete memoir on the experience of wearing women’s sizes as a child of the 90s, see Fortune Feimster’s Netflix special Sweet and Salty.) It was…an unpleasant ecosystem of feelings, to be sure. But at some point in my early teens, I started wearing combat boots and a newsboy hat, and all of a sudden my clothes had something to say.
Unfortunately, I don’t remember what that something was.
It wasn’t a gay thing—I didn’t have a Ring of Keys moment or anything like that. And I don’t think it was to make me look tough. Maybe it was. I did get bullied a lot. But I do know that I loved that hat.
Oh, I remember now. I was obsessed with the movie Newsies.
Newsies, the highly fictionalized teen heartthrob account of the 1899 NYC newsboy strike, came out in 1992 on my birthday weekend. My best friend and I watched it religiously when it came out on VHS and even wrote our own screenplay for Newsies 2, a sequel that focused righteously on giving our favorite characters from Brooklyn more to work with than just an act two cameo.
Someone, my aunt, maybe, gifted me a newsboy-style hat that was my grandfather’s, and it became my most precious possession. That hat was proof that I cared about something, and that something was the movie Newsies. Pictures from this era rarely show me without it no matter the weather, but eventually the brim started to flake off and the wool thinned to holes.
I stopped wearing hats after that. Sure, the occasional sunny day baseball cap or musical theater costume piece crossed my brow over the years, but I never wore a hat for fashion. My love for Newsies faded (slightly) as I matured into an older teen, and the need to be recognized as weird and special faded too.
Over the last few months, I’ve been working with a stylist/coach/garment acquisition therapist to dig into all those pesky ways of being that get in the way of feeling like my clothes belong to me. There’s internalized fatphobia and gender exploration somewhere in that story-for-another-day, but when Maggie asked me if I’d ever consider wearing a hat, I said, “Absolutely not. I am not the kind of person who wears a hat. For fun.”
I’d forgotten about my newsboy cosplay period until we started putting together the funeral picture boards, and I couldn’t help but remember that I was practicing wearing a hat, practicing being a different kind of person, a few hours before my dad died.
I’ve been wondering if it’s coincidental, the ways that wardrobe pieces come and go as we need them. When do we know when wear and tear warrants repair to keep the old jeans or a favorite shirt close by? What are the signs that tell us when thinning fabric and flaky brims mean it’s time to let go?
One of the pictures on the board is my dad standing next to me, a baby. I’d never seen this photo before, but I recognized the sweatshirt he’s wearing—a red v-neck with blue and white color block at the shoulder—because it’s hanging in my closet right now. I reclaimed it from my dad years ago because I dug its retro 80s vibes. Now, it’s a treasure. Funny how the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Snapshot of the Week
In Other News…
Maggie Greene is the best.
Spotify suggested that I listen to Brandi Carlile’s new single “You’re Not Alone,” which is actually Allison Russell’s new single on which Brandi is featured. But let’s not split hairs. It’s a great tune, and I think Outside Child is going to get me through this grief.
I’m re-watching Arrested Development. It is a balm.
I saw someone wearing a crop top that read, “Bury Me at Make Out Creek.” This is a deep, deep cut from The Simpsons and I am so grateful for it.
My cross-stitch is really taking off, and I’ve found lots of books on it through my library’s Hoopla app. Thank goodness for libraries.