‘Our Clothes Take Care Of Us. They Are Our Protective Shell, Our Second Skin, Our Closest Embrace.

‘Our clothes take care of us. They are our protective shell, our second skin, our closest embrace. They encircle us gently and keep us dry, warm, and cozy. Because of this job well done, even the cheapest of clothes are deserving of our care and attention when they break.

There's nothing broken that can't be fixed. That old saying comes to mind again. What if we could really believe it and apply it to everything in our lives? Just as we choose not to give up on an old busted pair of jeans, we choose to heal a friendship, we choose to let go of an old grudge we've been carrying around, and we choose to acknowledge feelings that have been hurt. The most vulnerable members of our society - the houseless, mentally ill, incarcerated - are cast out and disposed of. Can we learn to say, "I won't give up on you" and truly practice it?

When we mend, we are participating in the healing of the world, as mending is a profound act of restoring integrity to an object and our relationship to it. "We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our own relationship to the world," indigenous botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer said. "We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don't have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgement of the rest of the earth's beings."’

- Final Thoughts from Mending Life: A Handbook for Repairing Clothes and Hearts by Nina and Sonya Montenegro

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