You know in rom-coms, how the main character (usually a woman) often doesn’t realize they’ve met “the one”? He’s a faithful friend or standby running buddy, almost part of the furniture, until one day she realizes there’s a special bond, a real connection and it’s been staring her in the face all this time and how could she be so blind? Suddenly she knows it’s real. They were meant to be together!
That’s how it went with me and my favorite silk scarf.
I can’t remember when exactly I received this scarf from the Metropolitan Museum of Art gift shop, I but I know it came from my first husband Will back before you could order anything online. It might have been from Will and my daughter Hazel, a Christmas present, I’m thinking somewhere in the early to mid 90s. Thirty years ago. Maybe when I first received it, I thought it was a bit formal. Elegant even. Too fancy for the likes of me.
Scarves come and go and they’re kind of my security blanket. Years before Covid, I was always fighting off some respiratory illness. It probably started with playing music in smoky clubs. We all smoked back in the eighties. Even when I quit smoking, and all the way through the nineties, I still smoked. “Can I have one?” I hadn’t so much quit as just stopped buying cigarettes. I bummed. I mean, why not, as long as people were smoking in places I played. I was breathing their smoke so why not enjoy at least a little hit of my own. Until I just decided “no more.” Right around the time they banned smoking in clubs, bars and restaurants.
Maybe that was when I started getting sick regularly. As if the cigarettes and the smoke in the clubs kept some sort of balance. When I really started breathing, without the air filtered through an occasional Marlboro Light, it felt like I constantly had trouble keeping a clear head, freezing in a club outside of Boston or a room above a pub in the north of England. Wrapping a silk scarf around my throat felt like insurance or at the very least kept me warmer and cozier - a level of control.
How long does a scarf last?
Let’s say thirty years. Not of constant wear though. I didn’t fully appreciate “the one” for a decade or more. “Just throw it on the pile with the other ones.” Scarves come and go. I’m a Vera lover, Echo too. As thrift stores have been reduced to regurgitating clothes from Target that weren’t that great in the first place, the scarf rack — like vintage towels, napkins and maybe belts —has been a place I could still feel a little frisson of excitement in the Goodwill. I’ve never been able to pass up one that had a few things going for it: color, texture, size. A cheap thrill you can get your money’s worth from in just a few wears. Very few become keepers.
I grew into “the one.” Realized it went with everything, was the perfect size, shape, weight and had all my favorite jewel tone colors artfully distributed over its surface. I wore it so much it eventually started wearing out. Fraying around the edges, til there was more fray than edge.
I started to feel like a child with a blankie, that special object they can’t be without. What would I do when my old favorite made me look too much like a hobo? How much time did I really have to keep rotating the square to keep the falling apart bits from dragging in my food, dunking in my drink?
I thought maybe I could try and trim the edges and learn to sew a rolled hem. I put “the one” in my sewing basket, where old clothes go to die and be reborn as other things I never have the time to get around to making. Scarf went in, scarf came out as cold weather cycled around again. Just give me…one more season. Then we can say goodbye?
A few years ago I did a little research: they still had “the one”’s pattern on the Metropolitan gift store site, but it was no longer available as a square, only oblong. I thought about it but— oblongs are niche, a specialty scarf that’s more an “I’m wearing a scarf!” thing. The silk square is set it and forget it. I let the idea rest, decided I’d just accept this special scarf was going to have to sunset. Maybe I could make a throw pillow out of it?
But that just made me sad. And what would Eric have to say about having to watch TV with his head on a gift from my ex? I had to try to find it again. eBay, Etsy! I got enough search terms together: “Metropolitan Museum” “Chinese pattern” “Red, blue, black, green and gold.” “Silk scarf, 90s square.”
I found it on eBay. The old scarf! Photos showed it to be in much better shape than the one I wanted to replace. Why, it looked almost pristine. Tag showed it was silk, from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The price was reasonable, the seller looked reliable. I went for it.
Last night I came home to a pile of mail. Most of it catalogs that went straight in the trash. Medicare supplemental brochures. And there was a tiny package from New Jersey. I had expected to hear angels singing when I opened the envelope but—I immediately started to worry. Had they sent me the wrong thing? It was a sort of white pattern with purple watercolor strokes and a little bit of aqua and olive green, like something my late stepmother would’ve worn. What the hell-
Ah, it was only tissue paper, wrapped around my scarf! Oh thank god. I tore through the paper and…the scarf looked good. The colors and pattern were right. But it was late at night and I’d been traveling all day. I set it aside til the morning.
When I woke up, I laid them out side by side, the old hobo and the replacement. Everything was almost the same. I hated to be disappointed but…something was a little off. The silk on the original was more like a crepe de chine, a heavier weight, slight texture and less shine. Is the one’s texture from years of wear, the patina of grime and all the times I’ve stuck the Dry Clean Only item in the washer? Maybe. But the newer scarf’s silk just feels cheaper and there was a Metropolitan Museum of Art logo subtly worked into the centuries old Chinese pattern on the original that’s missing from the new one.
I’m sure I’m making too much of all this, but I feel like the Golden Bachelor, 72 year old Gerry, trying to replace the love of his life with a similar vintage. It’s all a little forced. Like Gerry and his beloved late wife Toni, me and “the one” have been through a lot together. We didn’t even try to find each other, it just happened, until I wasn’t sure where I ended and the scarf began.
I’ll give it my best shot, maybe even gradually forget what the old one felt like. I can’t bring myself to throw the original one away yet, but as long as it’s here I’m going to keep comparing them. I’ll bravely tie the new one on and just put this scarf that’s become a part of me way down in the sewing basket. For now.
I know eventually I’ll have to say goodbye for good.
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It IS really beautiful. I’m a scarf person. In fact, I did a double take when I saw the subject in your essay just now, because I literally just spent a half hour poking around online trying to find the replacement for a favorite scarf my sister bought for me a couple of years ago. It disappeared last fall when I was on a trip to the desert. I called every hotel and restaurant where I wore that scarf, but to no avail. I think I figured out the maker of the scarf but not the exact duplicate. I decided to order one that has a very similar color palette and theme. It’s even being shipped from the UK. Fortunately it’s not expensive. I know it won’t be the same, but hoping it fills the hole the old one left.
Museum gift shop scarves are the best! I'm wearing a William Morris print one right now, in fact.
Perhaps you can address the repair work as a gift to yourself--either do it yourself or find someone else to do it?