If you have not personally realized the dream of standard poodle ownership, let me let you in on a little secret: A standard poodle has more energy than 14 Golden Retrievers combined, hands down. Emmet, our 18 month-old standard poodle, thinks that the five to seven miles a day that the two of us spend walking is simply a good start. Sometimes, when the weather is perfect and I am up early, like it was and I was today, I walk him to the office to get a start on our daily miles. At almost exactly halfway on our route, there is a pet store with a wide selection of lovingly curated high-end dog chews, and as the one on the leash who has been better trained, I stop and allow Emmet to select his favorite. At the cash register I rue the indulgence only for a moment and then pop the (non-rawhide) roll into his mouth. And so the two of us walk the remainder of the way, the portrait of a woman and her delighted dog.

Even before Emmet got his treat on today’s walk, I found myself utterly delighted. There are times that I reach into my closet and find exactly what I want to wear, a combination of clothes that expresses exactly who I am and how I am feeling. And so it was today: a white blouse with the bow from which I successfully removed a chili stain, a black and white appliqued sweater, a black and white checked overcoat, and a skirt that I made. If you do not mind a wonky picture that may render you seasick, here is what I wore today:

The skirt was the first thing that I made and really liked when I started sewing a few years ago. To be more accurate, I started sewing again a few years ago. I grew up with a mother who sewed on a million-pound Singer machine in an enviable enameled seafoam green. I was not allowed to touch this machine. Instead, as a consolation prize in the late 70s, I received one Christmas the orange-and-white plastic Singer Junior Miss. I found this photograph courtesy of a Google search:

I love the expression on the young girl’s face, for she is not quite smiling and simply staring at the machine. That was my experience, too, for if you want to teach a child to hate sewing, give her a child’s sewing machine. The Junior Miss ran on batteries — at least when it actually did run — and skipped stitches and tangled bobbin thread like nobody’s business. This is unfortunate, and if I cursed as a nine year-old, this surely would have triggered that.

I did like the name, though: Junior Miss. In the late 70s, it could be a reference to only one thing — America’s Junior Miss Pageant — and the peculiar obsession of making every girl dream of being Miss America. In the early 70s, I had a pink swimsuit with a blue screen-printed sash that said, FUTURE MISS AMERICA. And I suppose I was to use my Junior Miss sewing machine to sew a pageant wardrobe to allow me to compete at the highest echelons of talent and beauty. This was a sad failure. I did not grow up to be Miss America. I say to this nation from the bottom of my heart: I am sorry, for I failed you.

But I did grow up in a school that prized home ec, and beginning in eighth grade, I learned to sew things: pillows, dolls, a wrap-around skirt. I learned to hand stitch and embroider and mend. In my senior year of high school, I made a jacket with a notched lapel and a skirt with a fly-front zipper, both in a fake linen-like fabric in different sherbet colors that would have made the Miami Vice wardrobe assistant proud. The jacket and skirt took forever to make, and I never wore them once.

I cannot say that at that point I loved to sew. There were things I liked about the concept. In a small southern town before the internet, I practically memorized Vogue magazine every month while I was in high school and college. (If you ever find yourself on a game show where the category is 80s Fashion Designers and Supermodels, do not hesitate to call me if you are permitted to phone a friend.) Sadly, this did not translate into any real ability to design, execute, and make my own clothes, and I suppose that it is hard to be a creative wunderkind when one faces the dreary business of sewing a wrap-around skirt on a school’s industrial machine.

But I did love riding my bike from my house on Quiet Cove to the local Belk in Sunset Plaza, which was a stone’s throw from Sunset Skate and the Sunset Nursing Home (a name whose irony escaped me all those years). Belk had fabric and patterns in the back right corner, just past the young men’s department and next to housewares. I remember spending so many hours opening the lateral files of patterns and touching every piece of fabric the store had. (I did not get in trouble there like I had that time at Friedlander’s Department Store, Moultrie’s finest place to shop. I had been minding my own business by trying on expensive hats, and a sales clerk informed me that they were destined for the heads of nice, clean ladies who most certainly would not want to wear them after they had been handled by some grubby child.) The Belk fabric section was largely unstaffed, and I bought just enough fabric and notions for home ec classes not to be run off when it was.

I am not certain now where I thought my life would lead me then.

Thanks to today’s skirt, I thought a lot about my life sewing on this morning’s walk. There was a time that I became convinced that the home ec requirement was a way to ensure that I would some day be a good wife and a good mother. When I announced several years into our marriage that I could sew, Chris seemed genuinely surprised; he had no idea. And while the children were young, I used it both as an escape from some of their demands and as a way to demonstrate to the larger world the depth of my care for them. There were nursery decorations and Halloween costumes and dresses and jackets and quilts — all sewn in furtive bursts, all to the end that I had an overwhelming sense of obligation with very little pleasure. In retrospect, I just wish I had taken the kids to the park instead — although I will immodestly admit that my daughter’s kangaroo suit was something special.

But I have things now that I did not have then. You know, little things, like time and patience. While I am decidedly Not Dead, cancer left me with a stomach that has scars in all the wrong places, places that make a lot of clothes really hurt. I have accumulated three Brother sewing machines: Larry, Darryl, and Darryl. I painted the children’s play room the color of my favorite purse and claimed it as my sewing room. I have watched every single episode of Project Runway. And at some point, I found that despite my best efforts to the contrary, I had grown into myself and became comfortable in my own skin.

So I started sewing again. There have been tremendous misses and horrible mistakes, and I have moved on without any regret. (It’s a novel concept, I know, but I highly recommend it.) There has been the improvement that comes only with practice. There has been an almost perverse delight in making the inside of the garment look just as finished as the outside. In a disposable world, I love having high-quality clothes that are made to last. In a life marked by undue concern about my physical size, it is a relief not to face the judgment of a clothing label. (I tell myself that I wear Size ALC.) In a time marked by isolation, I like wearing things that people ask about. In a political clime where everyone feels like things are completely out of our hands, I like using my hands to create something pleasing. In a life passing way too quickly, I enjoy checking in with that apparently grubby young girl who spent so many happy hours looking at patterns and touching fabrics. After a lifetime of hating pants, I feel the relief of finally owning a pair that I love:

I am making something now to wear to a black-tie event, and it has all centered around a single question: If Kate Spade made Madonna’s dress in the Material Girl video for a 51 year-old lawyer, what would it look like? I appreciate having a pursuit that makes me ask, and answer, these weightier intellectual pursuits.

While this is a recent thing, I am also acutely aware that it is not a recent thing at all. And I like that, too.

I was listening to a podcast from This American Life while I was walking Emmet this morning. The subject was “Delight.” The first segment was about a poet who had written down things that delighted him over a year and then compiled all of those things into a book, since the best part of delight is that it is a shared human experience. The poet read his essay about the time he carried a tomato seedling through the airport and onto an airplane. It befuddled TSA, garnered a number of happy looks, and resulted in many conversations with strangers. He never knew the power of such a small thing.

Today, I walked a dog with a bone tucked into his mouth in a beautiful city on a perfect day. I wore something that made me feel completely like myself. I was in the present but with appropriate gratitude for all the things that led me to this moment. There were interactions with strangers and a world that became so much friendlier and more manageable. It was as if I were carrying my own tomato seedling in the most improbable of places, and it was a delight. I recommend it highly.

ALC