Coats

Back in New York City for a few days, visiting family and friends, galleries, seeing films, eating and drinking, feeling the city vibe. I had to pack just one coat for a month long trip that begins and ends in New York, with southern Europe (Sicily) and northern Europe (Sweden) at the two longitudinal extremes. Last summer I found a brand new Barbour coat in a vintage store in Northampton, MA. Thank you Barbour coat for existing. You have a lovely soft cotton interior that feels like a blanket covering me on long bus and train rides. You have many pockets where I can stash away winter woolie hats and little water bottles to keep me hydrated on long urban walks. You are windproof and waterproof. You are perfect.

My aging body is feeling colder, in French we say "frilleuse," and coats have taken on a new function for me: vertical bed, enveloping me, comforting me as I walk through frigid spaces. In Burlington, Vermont, I picked up a boiled wool grey coat, slightly too big for me, but so enveloping, it helps me to face the day. It's like a warm, wooly fortress. In New York, I found a black Geiger boiled coat that makes me feel elegant. And now the Barbour coat, photographed in the Ai Wei Wei sculpture in Washington Square Park, the narcissistic cage, I call it. So many tourists have photographed themselves inside that mirrored cage. How many realize the joke? But I'm getting off topic. 

Inside the dressing room at Beacon's Closet on 13th Street, I try on a Frye suede coat. The photo does not do it justice. I would have taken it home with me had the snaps been in better shape. But the Barbour coat, hanging to the left, was waiting patiently for me to make up my mind. Yes, I address coats as if they were people. Because they protect me. 

Meanwhile, as I hang around Union Square Park before heading to Bushwick on the L train, I spot another interestingly dressed older woman. I'm still hesitant about wearing animal prints, but she really pulled it off with her enveloping faux fur leopard print coat.