Objects affect me. Their appearance, their scent, their symbolism, their history.

Random items? Meaningless objects? You must be kidding. Things can’t help but stand in for people, events, hopes, disappointments, and fears. And when they don’t, they also certainly do. Clutter overwhelms me. Empty spaces thrill me. The right object against the right blankness can bring me to ecstasy.

I could write thousands of words about laundry, thousands more about the feel of certain natural fibers on skin, or the sounds they make as their wearer moves through space. I would burn hottest writing about the pure smell of ozone on textiles washed in unscented soap, then hung out to dry in air warmed by the sun.

I admit to a hunger for handling the clothes of my loved ones. So much to touch, fuss over, be gentle with or persistent about. So much texture, temperature, fragrance, color, and authenticity to experience. My influence is control. My labor is infatuation.

But I will not write thousands of words about laundry today. Today I will pause in awe at the sight of white linen and periwinkle silk on an al fresco date in midsummer. And I will say almost nothing about the many places the silk top has been, or how the buttons down the back made it all wrong on more than one occasion. I will barely mention the way the linen shirt is the first linen shirt I’ve bought for a man I love, but I won’t not mention it, either. And I will quickly change the subject to Crete. Because isn’t it interesting that these two items of clothing should align so sensually against the backdrop of Masovian trees exactly one week before their wearers board a plane bound for Greece? (And Greece, of all places, where many, many sensual scenes are bound to be painted in these very colors?)

Mostly, I will stay silent. A picture, after all, already has so much to say.