Leftovers. A Memory

 Twice a year, or perhaps it was once a year...I can't remember exactly---several green trash bags filled with clothing from my slightly older cousin in Annapolis, Maryland would arrive. I can remember the distinct euphoria I would feel ripping open these bags filled with "new clothes" and having  all of the contents spill out in front of me like gold and diamonds. To say I grew up poor would not be entirely true because my extended family took very good care of us and my mother did the very best she could under the circumstances. The circumstances being she was alone at 25 with 5 young kids.
In these bags would be the finest clothing money could buy. Frilly, flowing little girl dresses, beautifully made coats/capes and funky matching pants/tops and sometimes even a little vinyl purse or pair of shoes. They all smelled of cedar. A scent that to this day brings me back to that time in my youth when I got to wear a rich girls clothes(or so I thought). My youthful reputation as a snob was built on these very clothing items.
The frilly flowing dress with the pink and red roses on it that I wore with white stockings and white Mary Janes would get me alienated from a dodge ball game at recess and earn me envious, hateful threats from the other girls who were not so well dressed and smelled of fried food. I didn't care. I felt like a princess and I was. I was because I was dressed like one and because my Grandmother told me so.
The mint green polyester shift and matching cape that I would wear to Mass on Saturday made me feel imperious and regal. The favorite orange polyester pants with the white daisies on them would eventually get ruined because I crapped in them at the sight of my estranged father walking towards me on a sidewalk one afternoon.
That yearly batch of clothing in trash bags was my segue into a world and life I wanted for myself....as a little girl and as an adult. My love of fine things was born in each cedar scented item. My cousin's leftovers allowed me to be a princess. I was. My grandmother told me so.


                                                                                               CJ Ellis


(photo credit: Richard Avedon / Model : Dovima)