Layering (a super short)

I laugh about it now. It used to drive me bonkers. I would say, “Get your coat,” and both of my kids would respond by grabbing a hooded sweatshirt. It is not their fault, it is always warm and sunny in Southern California, why would anybody need a real jacket or coat. They never needed to know the difference. “It IS a coat, it has long sleeves,” my son explains his logic to me and my daughter cheer-leads with ‘Yeah!’
My most important job is to feed and clothe my kids and they both resist my attempts as if I were trying to torture them for pure fun. A coat is a coat, I remind myself. “It’s not a coat, it’s a sweatshirt, “I tell my son. “Isn’t it a coat if it keeps me warm and dry?” There are lots of things that keep us dry and warm that are not coats. My kids keep me dry. My frustration keeps me warm. Neither of these helps me in a flash flood, as was predicted today. I don’t tell him this.
“I won’t even use it,” my sons adds quietly.
“What about a ‘jacket’?”
Who uses that word?
An umbrella? We don’t even own one of those.
“Ironically the umbrella was made for sun and not rain.”
“I’m just glad hats aren’t called umbrellas.”
“You don’t wear an umbrella, you carry it.”
“Like my coat?”
A coat is just another layer, it is not a garment alone. And I suppose coats are just cotes
and kids know that adding layers and simply knowing the proper names of things provides no shelter from our environment.





Painting by Pierre De Coninck, c. 1855 in [Public domain].