Does my guipil still fit?

What happened last week?

Hispanic Heritage Month ended

What happened yesterday?

I roamed the aisles of the newly opened Santa Maria grocery. I stared longingly at bags of Blanca Nieves detergent and individually wrapped packages of Chikys.

"Did you speak Spanish while you were there?" my dad asked.

"Yes," I replied. I didn't add that for the second time the cashier had answered me in English.

What happened?

Anything can happen to make me ask the question, "Does my guipil still fit?"

My dad thoroughly enjoyed sifting through the plastic tubs of our childhood when given the opportunity. Inside there's scattered plastic and order. I strained to deftly pick up the fondness and throw away the sharp, broken pieces that no longer served me to make space for my own histories. Boxes either held bits of unused string that could might weave themselves into something new. Or they were the last vestige of clutter. I had recycled t-shirts for E.O.U.M. J.V. and donated religious artifacts and stuffed animals. Objects held memories, but I had buried them. Both deserved better.

Backstrap loom weavings, including my guipil, had never been stored in the closet. Despite rarely wearing the piece, I had never lost sight of it. My gupil was always in view, tucked between my sweaters, except it's not. I stored the weaving inside out. That is how the women I knew stacked their wardrobe. Inside out, the true side remained untouched from sun or dirt. Inside out was also how they washed their guipiles. Since I returned to Wisconsin my guipil has never been washed.

I didn't wear it often. While in Guatemala, I had felt I wasn't wearing it right, especially when I added sunglasses or jeans. In Wisconsin, I wasn't wearing it at the right times. In desperate need of a costume, I once even wore my guipil on Halloween.

"But it's celebration," my sister-in-law had urged during another awkward conversation about costumes and cultures last year. Yes, maybe no, but of what?

My relationship. To the woven piece, to the women, to my experience, and my right to own my piece of it.

I used the accent but not the language to order Mexican food. I stared too long during visits to Latino owned business to gather prizes for programs. I paused too long to say thank you and take care.

When I remove my guipil from its place amid my sweaters and turn it right side out, I breathe through the spaces I can't see. It always smells the same. Should I celebrate this or is it the problem? I can't wash it, because the washing machine would wreck the woven figures. The strings would curl and knot. The conversations that led to the fingers which secured them in place would no longer be preserved. Sun and dust might be the least of the guipil's worries.

I pulled the opening over my head. The elderly man who ambled to his black pick up truck each morning also sewed the three sections of cloth his daughter had woven together. I felt the warmth of instant coffee and my Quetzal of bread on a rainy Saturday afternoon. I inhaled the herbs of manzanilla tea sipped when things, inside and out, weren’t right. I sucked the chocolate from between my teeth put there by the Choki cookie splurge. I stretched my cheeks around the fruits and vegetable roundness of tamarind and chayote, favorites once unfamiliar.

I turned my guipil inside out, trading the clipped ends for stars, flowers, and butterflies gifted to me by a friend’s always listening hands. I notice a tightness around my upper arms. I was ‘in shape’ while I was Guatemala, or at least I convinced myself that I watched my carbohydrate caloric intake enough to remain thin. Considering the stretch of the felt design around my biceps, and the stretch across my upper back, maybe my choices never made me particularly strong. Perhaps, pieces were missing.

Cracked windows allowed in the buzz of a final summer day insects know has come too late. "Does my guipil still fit?" I quickly sneezed the answer in rapid fire, irritation. An allergic reaction to a tipping point of layered dust. Inconvenient gaps. Forgetting. Omission. Leaving and coming home. I leaned back against the wall, eyes resting on the shelf across from me. On the shelves, sweaters have come and gone. Their fluffy soft folds fight for space like brightly colored cement block facades along the streets. Removing the blouse from its place means extra time to make the same space again. A memory that simply is, and isn't, mine. I keep it close, and can never quite preserve it the way it deserves. Still, I keep it.

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For a longer essay on the 'fit' of memory, read "Carry On Baggage" published by The Write Launch.