“July time is hard,” I overheard one woman say to another the other day. They were walking awkwardly, bundled thickly under layers of clothing, blankets wrapped over their skirts, warding off the chill of those long overcast winter days when the sun never makes it through the clouds and no matter what you do you’re cold.

I could resonate. The night before, I’d been invited to a dinner I was relatively certain would be outside. I got home to an all day power cut, so a bath was out. Already freezing before the night even began, I remembered my sister leaving some clothes behind on her last visit. My head lamp on, I rifled frantically through her drawers in the growing darkness, with these two thoughts as my only criteria: let it be warm, and let it fit me.

I flung aside the vests, the skirts, and her partner’s even smaller – but warmer! So much warmer! – tops. And I settled on some baggy long johns and a too-small (but warm!) top to go under everything else, and got dressed – like the women I’d passed on the street, the rest of my outfit now governed by the requirement that my clothes now had to fit over the clothes I was already wearing.

This entry was posted on July 11th, 2011 at 8:21 am by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.