Second Chances
In 1982, I took my first trip to London. I was 39, traveling alone on business for the publishing company where I was an editor. It was my first time out of the country, and I was feeling wildly excited, completely clueless, and backwoodsy in a city where I knew no one. As it happened, on that adventure, I had lunch with a Member of Parliament, dinner with someone who worked for the BBC and fell in love with life with London. The kind of love that you know is fated and forever. I came home feeling a little less clueless and also the proud possessor of an expensive red tartan kilt I’d purchased on a touristy impulse in a shop specializing in Scottish woolens. As time passed and I moved from house to house, the kilt went with me. At the time I bought it, I was almost as slim as a teenager, but some years and pounds later, I had to admit I’d never fit into it again. Nevertheless, I couldn’t bear to give it away.
It was like the dress you wore on a blind date with someone who turned out to be your soul mate. That knife-pleated red kilt was a reminder of a time in my life when my hip bones were sexy, and I was in love with a man and a city and a job.
I kept the kilt carefully pressed and stored in a bag from the cleaner’s, just in case I accidentally time-traveled back to the body I’d had at 39. Last year, I was purging my closet and pulled it out, so well-made it looked as good as the day I’d bought it almost 40 years ago. I was agonizing about letting it go to Goodwill or a consignment shop, to strangers, when I realized it might be a perfect fit for my 15-year-old granddaughter. But would she even want it? Was it a hopelessly nerdy hand-me-down? I needn’t have worried—evidently, it’s vintage and retro now, kind of like me. Last night, my daughter sent me a photo of Lark ready for a Covid-ly distanced “date” with her first boyfriend. Dressed in the red tartan kilt that was all about falling in love and following dreams, in the red tartan kilt that is getting a second chance at adventure.
Nikki Hardin is a writer of stories, musings, and memories. Her poetry has been published in Riverteeth Journal. She was the founder and publisher of skirt!, a monthly women’s magazine in Charleston, South Carolina. You can reach her at nikki@thedailynikki.com.