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A Meditation on Ripped Blue Jeans
Artful rips in jeans, hiding and revealing was the fashion. My straight-seamed, ironed-bloused mother raised her eyebrows as we walked through the department store. Who would pay money for these, she wondered, holding the very pair I coveted. They’re already ruined.
I was fat. Officially fat. Fat kid in school fat and every pair of pants I owned left an angry red line around my waist where my flesh pressed against buttons and waistbands. Fat kids move slowly so we can feel a seam just as it yawns right before it splits. We need the time to hide ourselves before a split seam invites in all the teasing.
My mother came home from shopping alone one day, beaming as she handed me a department store bag. Inside, a pair of stretchy jeans, in my correct size and a uniform shade of dark blue. I grabbed them and immediately ran to the basement, distraught.
In the basement, standing over the utility sink, I held the pair of dark blue stretchy jeans in one hand and scissors in the other.
“They aren’t jeans,” I cried to my well-meaning mother, “They’re navy blue stretchy jean-like PANTS!”
I pictured light blue acid wash with artful rips surrounding each knee. I splashed bleach over the pants and tried to make them disappear. I made holes where I thought my knees would go and tried to make it look…