Mourning and mending
It has been said that I write about ordinary things. That is true. Most of my life is ordinary. Exceptionally so. When I read that Sean Connery has gone to his eternal reward, my life became more ordinary. How many delicious hours did my girlfriends and I spend in the dark watching 007, captured by his soft Scottish burr which was extraordinary and, as such, made our ordinary lives a bit less so. He aged well as far as we were concerned, but I digress … ordinary does that.
This morning, I felt extraordinary. Not because I persisted and voted early, a goal that I’ve had for a long time, but because I did something that my grandmother and mother would have thought to be so ordinary that it might be thought of as “nothing special.”
What was it? I fixed the pocket in my jeans.
Jeans are the ethnic costume of everyone, everywhere. The jeans in question are the ones I wear the most because they fit, or come as close to fit, as I have found. I mended two areas that were the result of too much wear and care a few weeks ago. I darned one area and added a patch to the other. Neither would come close to the skill that my Mom and grandmother had when it came to mending. My amateur ministrations will have to do. Then, like the wonderful one-horse shay in the eponymous poem, the left side front pocket began to give up the ghost, first with a hole in the bottom – “don’t put your keys or money in that side” – then the fabric began to shred, literally.
Besides being my go-to pant apparel, these jeans are unique because the company name on the label on the back of the waist band denies having sold them to me. Despite an email enquiry and a phone call, Jessica London swears that the jeans they sent were another brand. Nothing I could do, even a picture of the label and other identifying numbers, would convince that company that these jeans came from them. Why? I have no idea. The “chat” gal asked me if I might have bought them from a street vendor. In Marcellus? Camillus? Skaneateles? Borodino?
Thus, without a clue about how to purchase a similar pair, I have had to embark on this ordinary effort to repair the pocket. And here is where I feel like I have achieved the exceptional. I have another, older pair of really shredded jeans, a formerly sturdy pair from LLBean that are maybe 20 years old. I used a piece from them for the earlier patch. And, this morning, it dawned on me that they have pockets in good condition. I can’t really cut the whole pocket out because of the metal grommets but I can and did cut out the back of the pocket and sewed it onto the shredded fabric of my left pocket.
I feel so proud that I even thought of this. And, although it doesn’t make up for the loss of Sean Connery, at least I can wear the jeans while I watch his movies.
