I was eighteen years old and a college freshman before I was allowed to select my

own clothes. My mother “owned” me; I was not a human being but her personal property.

There was a small shop in the “ville,” as we college students called it.

I purchased a blue-and-white polished cotton long-sleeved blouse with white pearl buttons in October of my freshman year.

It should have been framed in ornate gold and hung on the wall for posterity, as though it were an expensive handmade kimono from Kyoto.