rambledmusings

[rambledmusings]

Spiderman Slides

The joy of opening a bag of hand-me-downs, dumping them out on the coffee table, and going through them with my mother will always pull a strange nostalgia from deep in my bones. My best friend's mom had given mine the bag when we had hung out last, and we'd only just gotten around to sorting it. As we sorted through his outgrown clothes, my mom held each garment up for my inspection and then folded it into piles by size. I was scrawny, and given my mother's impressive stature of five-foot-nil it was likely to stay that way. I was her daughter, after all. I peered down into the bag, excited at the overwhelming abundance of Cool Clothes- these were graphic tees, jeans with the elastic that lets you tighten the waistband, and... A pair of light-up Spiderman slides. I remember distinctly how the vinyl of the decals was raised on the edges, the way the stitches felt so sharp compared to the smooth plastic, and that I instantly fell in love with them. I'd been a girly girl my whole life, at least in appearance. My hair was long and white-blonde, the kind you know will darken with age to a dishwater brown but is striking while it lasts, and I always had it done- braided, curled, dip-dyed, or in pig-tails. I wore a Hello Kitty shirt and an original My Little Pony sequined backpack to my first day of kindergarten, for goodness sake. Outside of my appearance, I was a goblin. I ran feral and barefoot every hour I could, dug in the dirt with bare hands until the soil stained my nailbeds, caught frogs and lizards and garter snakes without flinching. A wild child, my family would say. Those slides called to me in a way Hello Kitty and My Little Pony never had- such a clearly 'boy' item of clothing, and I wanted them in a way I couldn't explain. My mom had set them to the side, they were too big, but I didn't care. I wore them until the soles fell off. Today, I feel that same calling to certain items of clothing- baggy jeans and military-grade boots, a t-shirt just a little bit too big to hide my binder. Today, I feel that same thrill of nostalgia when my transfemme friends give me the clothes they wore in middle school and outgrew years ago. It's the thrill of the childhood I wish I'd had, wearing t-shirts with Transformers or Power Rangers on them, jeans with holes worn through the knee, puffy skater shoes, and baggy polo tees. It's not fashionable, it doesn't look great on me, and it absolutely gets me carded for looking like a 14-year-old, but after a childhood wasted being careful not to stain my dress or tear my tights, I feel I've earned a cheesy t-shirt or three.