cw: anxiety and sensory dysregulation
- Before you became a dress hanging in E’s closet, you were born on a conveyor belt. You watched identical kin as they disappeared down the line and wondered how they came to be. They were you, but not. Needles poked your neck, round and round, until you had a collar. You were constructed in pieces. Your shoulders—sequin fabric stitched in a rectangular shape and lined in lace. You were held together by buttons. Elastic at the waist and a tulle skirt for spinning. You were ready. Moved from conveyor belt to box, you felt cold metal and cardboard folds. You longed to be filled up by skin. You longed to be worn.
- As a child, I sat among the dresses in my mother’s closet. She scooped me up and held me close. I jangled—arms full of bangles and beads. Within her closet, pink walls, the inside of a seashell, I let my fingers roam. Seams and clasps, cold buttons, and linen light in my palm. I watched her stand before the garments as if they were paints and brushes. She paused—removing hangers gently, one by one, and slipping the items over her head. Wrapped, smoothing the seams, she held me, and I touched the fabric to my belly. I wanted the clothes because, like me, they were a part of her.
- Two-year-old E looks into her closet with anxiety. She claws the fabric off her shoulders. Her mother watches her put a finger to her temple and speak to herself: “Come on brain, choose, choose.” Tulle, felt, and polyester make a halo at her feet. Her mother reaches for her skin, but she only sinks deeper into the pile.
- You are tagged with numbers and letters to prove you are different from the other dresses—those that are you, but not. You are packed up, pressed, and sealed to deliver. You land on the doorstep in melting snow. Someone takes a picture of your outsides to confirm you have arrived. You peak out behind neatly folded plastic. You wait patiently. You know your role. But still, you anticipate a body. You wait to hold and be held in return.
- Often, E tells me she does not want touch. She squirms from my arms and tells me, “No.” It is, of course, her right to keep her body closed to me. But still, her closures feel shameful. I had assumed so much, simply because she grew from me. She is my child, and yet I cannot cradle her, grasp her hand, lean into her body on the sofa. I measure the distance between us with the length of my arm. The doctors say sometimes these things happen. Sometimes there is a strain. They say I must work to connect. So, when I see E’s interest in clothing, I am hopeful. I am desperate. I cling to this part of her because it is part of me. Because when I catch her eyes lingering upon a colorful silhouette, I think we are not strangers after all.
- But E senses that something is shifting. She pulls on a dress she has worn for months. The empire waist digs into her abdomen. Suddenly, she can feel every stitch and seam. She writhes and winces on the floor—beaten by an invisible enemy. She screams, “It doesn’t feel good!”
- Your box is opened with scissors that slice through plastic. Unwrapped, you are naked. You are searching. You cannot read the faces. You are still hopeful, but you scream from your seams: “Keep me, choose me, pick me. Fill me up with your body. Lay me across your skin. Let me do my job.”
- I discipline my limbs not to reach for E. Instead, I cradle her in fabric, fold her into fuzzy blankets, and make a swing. My husband and I take opposite ends. I hear her insist, “More, more, more!” I long to embrace her with my whole body, but try to hold her in the way she needs to be held. I buy myself a weighted blanket. I try to feel my body, its edges, under the weight.
- Sometimes E tries to escape by running out the door. The metal doorknob interrupts her flight, so she hangs on it—this round barrier—in her underwear. She pulls with all her strength, but she has not yet learned to turn the doorknob. Her mother says the feeling will be over soon, but she doesn’t believe the words coming from her mother’s mouth. She must strip the feeling from her bones the way she strips fabric from her skin.
- The bar grips your collar, and you hang stiffly, sore. You are lonely–slipping down and hanging by a corner. You are tossed off the rack and left in a pile of shades on the floor. You are folded and crumpled into open drawers. In these postures, you are useless and wonder whether you have a purpose at all. You still wait to be worn.
- I begin to see with X-ray vision. Instead of silhouettes and colors, I stare through fabrics and turn them inside out. I inspect the seams, the tags, the elastic. Legs too tight, sleeves too loose, sequins that itch, pleats too billowy to move in. We play a game of Goldilocks. It’s been an hour. We are late. We are late.
- At home, E stops wearing clothes. Her mother and father stop trying to dress her. It’s easier that way. She pleads for her baby clothes. She begs to traipse down to the basement and dig through piles–to find the item fixed in her mind. She frantically pulls a dress over her head. She waits a moment, says “Maybe,” and then pulls it off again. Exhausted, she becomes a naked ball on the floor.
- One day, in the dark closet, you feel fingers grasp your skirt. You think, “This must be it. Here goes. I am falling. I am chosen.” You slip into open hands. But you are turned inside out. Scissors tear your seams and all the tags that say how to care for you. You wonder, “Later, how will anyone know what I need?”
- Before bed, E and I read a picture book about the French artist Louise Bourgeois. We learn her mother was a fabric mender who repaired broken, beautiful things. Her mother’s work inspired much of Louise’s art. Sometimes she tore garments apart to stitch them back together again. She sculpted a gigantic spider she called Maman. Louise admired how spiders mend their own webs. As E pulls the book close to her nose and examines the page with stitched dresses, I wonder if we, too, can become spiders that mend broken, beautiful things.
- A friend comes to play. The two children rummage beneath E’s bed and pull out the box of dress-up costumes. After several minutes of trying, E cannot choose. Her mother hears the friend, exasperated. “E, you are hard to play with,” she says. Hearing this, E feels ashamed and puts her head in her hands.
- Without warning, you feel a tug on a fugitive string. Another tug, hard and insistent. You are unraveling. “Wait, wait,” you say, “they are transforming me.” You don’t know if you want to be transformed.
- I sit beside E and make offerings: “What about this? Or this?” Futile attempts. My head drops, heavy on my neck. On my shoulder, on my back, I carry extra pairs of socks, T-shirts, dresses, and bright colored leggings. I carry scissors to snip sleeves and waistbands and Band-Aids to cushion seams. I run to Goodwill. I order expensive sensory outfits. I ignore underwear, coats, socks, and shoes. We must prioritize. On bad days, my husband and I wrap her in a blanket, naked, and drop her off at daycare. I say to myself, each time in mourning, “This is how we are starting the day.”
- E crosses the threshold of the daycare doorstep in her fuzzy blanket. The material is called Minky—black with snowflakes like the ones we cut and string together out of paper. Her loving daycare provider picks her up and gives her parents a knowing nod. She takes E’s clothes and holds them to the blanket with her wrist. E gives a look of resignation as the door closes and seals them within.
- You begin to speak with the others on the rack—in your own way. They, too, are made in pieces and parts threaded together. They, too, make a home here in this closet while they wait to be worn. You think, “Perhaps, we all expected too much.” But expectations were sewn into your seams.
- As if by contagion, I find myself clipping my tags and dismissing sweaters—too hot, too tight, too stiff. I pull items over my head and off again. I grab old sweatpants and run to her room. I cannot soothe her. My skin screams as I complete checklists and online intake forms, phone calls about qualifications: birth details, food allergies, sights, sounds, and smells. “Does your child only eat one kind of texture?” No. “Does your child cover their ears for loud noises?” Yes. “Does your child have clothing preferences?” Yes. “Sensory seeking and sensory overload?” Yes, yes, yes.
- E begins therapy sessions in a gym that smells like chlorine and stickers. She hangs from equipment. She puts her hand in a jar of goop. She practices sitting with a drop of water on her flowered leggings. Her mother takes notes as E tells herself she can get used to things. She tells herself that her feelings can change.
- You are beginning to get used to the closet. When the air moves through you, it feels cool and soft. You no longer feel so hollow, so empty. Sometimes you admire how the light makes your sequins reflect along the wall. You think, “Perhaps I do not need a body.” You think, “Perhaps I have my own skin.”
- I lean my weight on E’s shins to provide deep pressure—to “get her legs ready for pants.” I hand her two choices and step away to get myself dressed. I sit with her discomfort and breathe as I remove hangers. I linger and feel the fabrics on my skin. I balance on one foot, then the other, carefully choosing a pair of shoes. I put on earrings and red lips. Sometimes, I let her pick my outfit. Sometimes she likes to match. We wrap ourselves in color and sequins, and I take her late to school.
- E asks for help putting on her socks. She does not scold her mother about the seams. She even giggles a little when her mother struggles to line them up to her toes. She lets her mother touch her ankles. E drags a chair over to her closet and reaches high to run her fingers over the fabric. She pauses and pulls down a dress with sequins on the shoulders. Other dresses fall to the floor. She jumps off the chair and slips it over her head. Together, they wait to see how it feels.
Work Cited: Novesky, Amy. Cloth Lullaby: The Woven Life of Louise Bourgeois. Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2016.
Calley Marotta
Calley Marotta is a writer, mother, teacher, and friend. She teaches writing at the University of Denver where she researches the relationship between literacy and carework. Her writing has appeared in the Atticus Review and in the Los Angeles Review. She thanks family, colleagues, writing groups, and students for supporting and inspiring her writing.
