Stitched Heart
If I were to wear it around the house, the sleeves would drape into the butter dish. A pleasing but forbidden combination: grey wool, a pale pat of butter, deep blue porcelain. The hem would collect silky dust bunnies, a fringing of sorts, and I wouldn’t need a cover at night.
To call it a dressing gown seems insufficient somehow, as it is in fact a blanket carefully repurposed to accommodate human limbs. When I slip my arms into the wide bell sleeves I feel grounded, its heavy waffle weight attaching me firmly to the earth. It has no tie and hangs loose and open from shoulder to ankle. A red felt heart is stitched at the nape.
I wear it rarely, unsuitable as it is to sharehouse living. It catches on sharp corners, collects stray papers and cutlery in its folds. But every now and then, at the end of a long day, I carefully pull it on. My hair wet and combed, my body clothed in a soft, baggy long sleeve and a pair of cotton pyjama pants. This is my safest and most comfortable form.
Naum Gabo, Translucent Variation on Spheric Theme, 1937 / Henry Moore, Seated and Draped Figure, 1958
There’s something charming about the gown’s impracticality, as if it were made for a world uncluttered by human debris, a world where every corner is round and all the surfaces mossy. Its Gandalfian shape and design indulges the imagination, that most precious of human qualities that I fear we’re incrementally losing. A creative mind thought to repurpose this object, went to the effort of cutting and reshaping it, added playful and distinctive touches just for joy, and finally passed it on, thinking it might sit well on my shoulders. As culture spirals steadily into a vortex of convenience, it’s these vestiges of slow and purposeful creativity that I cling to.
When I first begin writing this piece, formulating and teasing out the angle that I want to take, my mind naturally lands on the timelessness of the gown. I reflect on its position as the most enduring piece of clothing in my wardrobe, answering to no trend as it wasn’t designed to be trendy.
Henry Moore, Recumbent Figure, 1938
I think about my body in twenty or thirty years, and how the gown’s grey folds will continue to envelop me no matter my age, shape, or status in life. It’s strange to know that these things will inevitably change. The insistence of now, and my preoccupation with the past, makes it difficult to conceptualise any distant future. But the gown, I surmise, will always be a link to my future self. If only I knew that this link had an expiry date.
One evening, I pull my dressing gown off the clothes rack, wanting to feel its texture and keep it close by while I write. This is when I realise that in the months since its last wear, someone, or perhaps several someones, have taken to the sleeves with the efficiency of an office paper shredder. While most of the gown is still intact, a blooming pattern of holes has developed, and the hems are white and crunchy. The common clothes moth, which also goes by the pretty and innocent name of Tineola bisselliella, has made a home in my treasured dressing gown.
I feel indignant, my thoughts quickly unravelling in frustration. What if I had noticed sooner? Maybe I could have stopped this from happening. And how could they chew through something so special to me? Do they have no respect? I guess I hadn’t considered that my appreciation for natural fibres might be shared by nature itself.
Leonard Shillam, Night Wind, 1968
I reassess my situation, knowing that this will no longer be the poignant and neatly packaged story that I had hoped to deliver. While I was busy projecting my own future vision onto this piece of clothing, other bodies carefully wove their lives into its threads. They marked their territory, staked a claim, said this stitched heart is ours as much as it is yours.
Left with a moth-eaten reminder of life’s impermanence, I bid farewell to the image of my lined and silver-haired-self wrapped in a woolly mantle. I soften my ideals, knowing that reality will always prevail over the narratives I so carefully construct.
Just as bees take up residence in bonnets and flies eavesdrop from walls, so I am bequeathed with a moth in my sleeve.
Bianca is a writer and artist who is passionate about bringing people together through shared experiences. With a background in anthropology and a deep interest in people and culture, she has worked across several organisations in the arts and not-for-profit sectors. Her written work explores the intricate and often surprising paths of emotion and memory, and has appeared in publications including Journals of Love & Literature, Astray and Anaerkilik. Bianca is the current Program Producer at the Emerging Writers’ Festival.