She draws pink cats with party hats. When I was her age, I colored between the lines of someone else’s perfectly rendered feline. I chose the correct colors—gray, black, or brown.

Penelope sews, too. Her stitches this year are smaller and straighter, but I will always treasure the first ones—inches long, slanted, sometimes a button hung by a single thread. She makes pillows and quilts for her dolls, but my favorite of her creations are two pieces of fabric, ragged around the edges, sewn together on three sides without stuffing. These are not pillows, she tells me, nor are they pouches, purses, or bags—no straps or handles—they’re pockets, ready for any skirt or slacks in need of them. If someone says her creations are bad or wrong or useless, she fiercely disagrees or just doesn’t care. I have fought for those qualities all my life.

I look at the pants I’m wearing. They fit well, they’re comfy, but pockets? Not one. No place to stash a Kleenex, cell phone, keys, or credit card. Others in my closet have shallow side pockets cut at a slant so the contents spill out when I sit down, like the punch line of a bad joke. When I’ve misplaced my phone or forgotten my purse yet again, I peruse the internet. Sometimes a false hope pops into view—a fake pocket with the top sewn shut, a reminder that appearances can disguise the things we lack.

Yes, cargo pants have pockets of all sizes and skin-tight leggings have side pockets for cell phones, but you’re not going to get this granny in either of them. I remember a pair of yellow pedal pushers—that’s what we called them then—that ended just below the knee, for riding bikes or skating. They had a deep pocket on each side to keep a skate key, a bandage for a skinned knee, or a nickel for a popsicle. When I was a kid, pockets made me feel safe and self-contained, like I could take care of myself. They still do. The act of slipping on a dress or pants with proper pockets gives me pleasure. From my first step, there’s a difference to my gait, confidence, joy. Why didn’t I notice that before? I’m a grandmother still learning to listen to my body.

Recently, I noticed my granddaughter Maya, two years old, wearing a flowered dress with two front pockets. “How special to have a dress with pockets!” I told her. Then her mother, my daughter Katie, told me that pockets are a feminist issue, part of the history of women’s rights. How did she know that, and why didn’t I? For centuries, women didn’t have pockets, or made do with large, tie-on pockets underneath their petticoats. In need of a hanky, they’d have to hold the sneeze until they found a place to undress. Men’s jean pockets are nearly twice as big as women’s, and they’ve had pockets sewn into coats, waistcoats, breeches, and pants for centuries, keeping their valuables close and hands free for shaking, smoking, backslapping, gunslinging, or carrying things for women who don’t have pockets.

I learned that around the turn of the twentieth century, when men’s suits sported fifteen pockets and women’s clothing had none, first-wave feminists formed The Rational Dress Society and created the Suffragette Suit, with no less than six pockets. We got pockets in the 1920s, ‘30s and ‘40s, but meanwhile, the pocketless dress was encroaching. Male designers abhorred bulges in favor of fabric that draped from boyish frames. As models’ breasts and hips got smaller, clothes got slinkier, the fashion handbag industry boomed, and pockets disappeared.

Like most women, I carry handbags of all sizes. I usually carry them with the shoulder strap slung over my head to the left, then across my chest and tucked under my right arm, extra secure so it won’t slip off if I lower my arm or someone tries to take it from me. Once, on a dark night in Copenhagen, I was lucky I didn’t have a handbag. All my money was in my pockets, and I carried only a small basket of groceries in my right hand. When a guy jumped me from behind, I didn’t have to stop and think: Does he want my purse? Should I give him my purse? Oh, God, what if he doesn’t want the purse? Nope, I simply dropped the basket, delivered a quick right hook, and smashed him in the face. That’s the power of pockets.

Penelope’s pockets hold shells and stones picked up from the beach, pipe cleaners, beads, feathers, chalk, Goldfish crackers, and money of her own. Pockets give her the right to conceal, to keep her possessions safe, a place to put her hands when they’re cold or tuck them in when she walks just for the pleasure of it. And if she needs to fight she can pull them out, quick on the draw.

Recently, I checked her closet and was chagrined to find that none of the dresses I had bought for her third, fourth, and fifth birthdays had pockets. For her sixth birthday, I found a woman designer who has closed the pocket gender gap, and I chose a dress in her favorite color, teal. She grinned as she slipped it on, but before she twirled the full, ruffled skirt, she stuffed her hands in the large front pockets all the way up to her wrists. Then she thrust her arms out, threw her head back, and spun her joy.

From her basket of pockets Penelope let me pick one for myself. I chose one with paisley on one side and flowers on the other. I won’t tell her today that her work is a feminist act, that she is one in a long line of women who must claim and reclaim the control of our bodies and the work of our hands, generation upon generation. Let there be delight in her creations now, the simple comfort and pleasure of their use. For now, I cherish this imperfect pocket made by my granddaughter, who needs no permission or approval for her work. She is one of the fearless young women who will once again stitch and sew and piece together what they need as they leave the baggage of centuries behind.

Play it Again, Jacques

A Memoir of French Music

by Meredith Escudier

  What can be gained from listening to music? And what can be learned from songs? More specifically French songs? Play it Again, Jacques attempts to answer that question as it traces the life story of an American in France, accompanied, nourished and enriched by the French singer/songwriters she encounters along the way. From composer Michel Legrand and lyricist Jacques Demy – the brilliant creators of the legendary Les Parapluies de Cherbourg – through Charles Aznavour, his intense vibrato ardently portraying the Montmartre of yesteryear, to the contemporary Francis Cabrel singing an ode to Toulouse while managing a nod to the troubadours from the Middle Ages... this book is a tribute to French artists who have made their mark on the author’s sensibilities, expanding and deepening her world by offering up joy, comfort, greater understanding, and charm. Twenty chapters feature twenty singers who have accompanied her over the years, from the young girl in 1968 anticipating her student year in Bordeaux through 50-odd years into her future after a full and layered life in Paris…from the watchful jeune fille to the more settled grandmother, from youth to gently-aged, from curious and swept away to still curious and liable to be swept away. In tracing her musical itinerary, Meredith Escudier offers a personal window onto French life and a bridge into contemporary French culture and music. Play it Again, Jacques is for music lovers, Francophiles, or anyone helpless to resist the lure of a musical voyage. Available on Amazon

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