I was a rich first world child growing up in a poverty stricken third world country when I first met Them. They were just ordinary people, same as me, but something set them apart from any people I had met before. They wore rags. And they wore them regally. They lived in hovels, some of them, but they didn't complain that they wanted palaces. They sometimes didn't have enough food, but they kept on with their normal every day lives, as if buoyed by the knowledge that this famine wouldn't last forever. They made poor look luxe. They wore their torn faded clothes with grace. They swept the dirt floors of their houses, and the hard packed ground around them, carefully. Every day. And on the days when there wasn't sufficient food, they shared what they had with people who were hungrier than they.
These people were my friends and I wanted to be like them. I started wearing rags too. I loved my faded torn clothes (my mother didn't like them as well as I did!) and wore them as much as possible. I started to use a safety pin to mend broken seams, i tied fraying edges of a hole together to make it a little less of a hole, I began treasure each hole, fray, fade, tear and bleach spot and flaunt them proudly. It was suddenly cool wear broken shoes to town (My mother still disagreed!); it made me feel like I was one with my rag wearing friends. What I didn't really understand then, was that these clothes helped me identify, helped bridge the gap between my first world self and my third world friends. I didn't think of it that way as a 12 year old. I just wanted to fit in. Wearing rags was cool.
Now, as an adult, living in my homeland, I still use a few of those live-with-less ways I learned in Africa. I sometimes safety pin a hole I don't have time to fix (my mother still disapproves!), I like to wear my boots until they have holes the snow melts into, things like that. But mostly I don't wanna wear rags. Mostly I like to replace my clothes before they're entirely worn, I like to dress relatively nicely when In public, I have a dozen or more pairs of shoes for every season. Mostly I like this way of life but sometimes on the rare occasion I wish for the less complex lifestyle of my childhood -torn dresses, limited wardrobe options and few trends to stay ahead of.
Maybe it's nostalgia. Maybe it's the minimalist in me.
(The thought seemed like a good one. Never could write it out like I was thinking it tho. It's still sort of stuck in my busy Christmas brain. But this is what you get. Til next time, TSW)
