THE POSTSCRIPT, Carrie Classon
I was weeding through my closet, as I need to do much more often than I do. I bring my used clothing to my parent’s house, up north, because they have a very nice thrift store that employs the developmentally disabled people. It appears my old clothes find new owners quickly, so I don’t feel as bad about dumping my ill-considered clothing choices.
I brought the latest batch up north right before leaving for Mexico when I realized I owned about six more pairs of capris than I would ever wear. I had them in sizes that didn’t fit and colors that didn’t match, so I piled them all into a duffel, along with a blue sweater that I thought my sister might like. I thought I’d wear the sweater while writing, but it has big, bell-shaped sleeves, and I discovered trying to type with giant sleeves was not practical.
So my mother kept the duffel until the next time my sister and my niece, Isabelle, came up to visit. This was Isabelle’s last visit before she went to Argentina for the year. My mother dutifully had my sister try on the blue sweater with the large sleeves, and my sister said that, while it was a nice sweater, it made her look exactly like Paddington Bear, so she passed on the sweater. My mother kept one pair of capris.
“Don’t you want to try on some of these capris?” my sister asked Isabelle.
Isabelle just graduated from college. She is, and has always been, a very fashionable person, and I could have told you that she was not going to be excited about her aunt’s hand-me-down capris, but I was still surprised when my sister reported to me what she said.
“I have never worn capris,” Isabelle announced, “and I’m not about to start now!”
I had absolutely no idea that capris were old women’s clothes until this was pointed out to me.
I went to New York just a week or so later, and I scanned the crowds. Coming from the Midwest, I am at a disadvantage when it comes to knowing what is or is not in fashion, but I knew New Yorkers would be a reliable source of information. I was there for three days, and I walked from Midtown to Soho, surveying the legwear of the women I saw, and I am here to report that Isabelle was right. No capris!
This is the thing about getting old. You don’t realize you are doing it until it’s too late.
I am now in San Miguel de Allende. No one comes to SMA, as folks call it, for spring break. It takes too long to get to, and it is too far from an ocean. This means that the people who are here have plenty of time to come and go and are not particularly interested in beaches. In other words, they are old.
One of the nicest things about SMA for me is that here, I am pretty young for an old person. Most of the old people are older than I am, which makes me feel youngish. Yesterday I was walking around town a little earlier than usual, and there were lots of women on the streets. It was a beautiful sunny day, and I noticed—I could not help but notice—that every single woman in my line of sight was wearing capris. Every single one.
Of course, Isabelle is right. Capris are totally out of date. The good thing is, here in San Miguel, so are we.
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