Notes

#336: The Pre-Covid Jacket
hublot replica

The weather has changed, and gradually, my winter clothes are making a comeback. This week, I have shifted from wearing my light jacket to my warmer, fake-fur-lined winter jacket; when I dug it out of the cupboard, I was not expecting such an emotional reaction.
The last time I wore this jacket, I was in Boston, MA, in March 2020. I had travelled to the USA for a conference, with the threat of covid-19 already looming in the air. But it was still early in the month, and my travel insurance still said I was good to go, so off I went. One day after returning to the UK, restrictions started to appear. Within a week, gatherings were limited, and less than two weeks later, full lockdown was upon us. And at that time, I put this coat away.
While the pandemic is still with us, those March days seem very far away. But when I saw myself in the mirror wearing this coat, the memories came back — not just of lockdown, but of the time just before it. It seems so strange now to think back to February, January, 2019 even, and wonder: how didn’t we know this was going to happen?
This coat is an object from the time before, the pre-covid days. But just as it brings back memories of those times, those memories are now disappearing, and new memories will be attached to it: the daily walks to clear my head after another day of Zoom meetings and working from home. The small trips out trying to feel some semblance of normality in this very abnormal world.
This realisation of shifting memories makes me think of a passage in Rebecca Solnit’s beautiful book, A Field Guide to Getting Lost:
“One day a few years ago my mother took out of her cedar chest the turquoise blouse she bought for me […]. When she unfolded the little garment and gave it to me, the living memory of wearing the garment collided shockingly with the fact that it was so tiny, with arms less than a foot long, with a tiny bodice for a small cricket cage of a ribcage that was no longer mine […]. The continuity of memory did not measure the abyss between a toddler’s body and a woman’s. When I recovered the blouse, I lost the memory, for the two were irreconcilable.”
Like Solnit’s blouse, my pre-covid jacket carries memories of a time in my life which seems lost. And as this object takes on more covid-related memories, I will lose those remnants of the time before. Slowly, I’m going to run out of pre-covid objects — and I’m not sure what to make of that.
Katie writes regularly about random objects that she finds in her everyday life. If you’re interested in reading more, check out her blog Object, a collaboration with fellow Medium blogger Eleanor. You can also follow us on Twitter @ ObjectBlog.

My Website: https://o-fakes.net