This weekend I found the unthinkable; the disease to the sarong; the slow death of my love affair, leading to the resentment of the beginning of a new love affair (sooner or later). I found a HOLE! A 2-finger-round sized hole—no not a hole, a rip, a tear. Not one that I can fix with a simple stitch; it’s too fragile and has too many strings: like 10 little Moses’ parting 2 inches of my sarong.
I never grew up with a security blanket so I never knew the feeling that my friends had when they talked about the blanket they loved so much, with the frayed ends and perhaps a chewed corner or two. I had quite the opposite feeling about those particular blankets actually.
When I was about 6, my best friend would tell me that when she slept she liked to lace her fingers through the holes of the afghan her grandmother knit for her when she was a baby. I didn’t particularly like that specific blanket much either; it was itchy wool, I could barely touch it, even when she forced me to try putting my fingers through the holes like some perverted initiation to her Binkie.
However; my love affair with my sarong started about 10 years ago when my parents took my brother and me on our first real (by ‘real’ I mean we had to take a plane to get there) vacation to Maui Hawaii.
When we were in a souvenir shop that had many of these sarongs, I was fascinated by the multitude of ways it could be worn. I had seen the women on the beach wearing it as a skirt or as a tube top dress, or a criss-cross halter dress. It was later shown to us by a Hawaiian man at a luau, that it could be wrapped around the mans hips and between his legs in such a manner that the end product was something like a skimpy and form-fitting man-skort, with only half the skirt portion covering the front—But still with the shorts for full coverage (obviously). I have photographic evidence of my dad and brother (who was probably forced—despite the smile on his face) wearing just the sarong and posing on out hotel balcony like some under-tanned Hawaiian wanna-bes doing the “Hang-loose” sign.
In the end I found the perfect one, the one that caught my eye: Blue with white flowers that look like they were tie died, but in reverse, so: white flowers with blue die.
I could wrap it twice around me and it dragged on the floor, but I didn’t care; I wanted it! I wanted it even more because my mom was getting one too. I knew one day it would fit me; one day when I was grown-up like the women on the beach.
The sarong followed me on later family journeys to Cozumel Mexico, then back to it’s birthplace of Hawaii—well actually it was made in Indonesia (says the tag), so back to where it grew up and calls home. It came with me to Spain and unfortunately I look back and realize I was a total bitch and neglected it in these locations. In fact, I felt like it was too old for me. It was a heavy burden to me.
When I got to Dubai on my first boat, I brought it; more out of habit like I always did; if there’s a beach there, the sarong must be there too. In Dubai I started paying more attention to it; now that I was 21, I could use it like all the women on the beach in Hawaii. I was using it like a towel to lie on; it didn’t carry the sand as much as a towel, or sometimes as a means to stop my ass from sticking to chairs.
When I needed peace in my cabin, or the boat got infested with small flies that I was afraid would fly into my nose and ears at night, I would tuck the sarong around my bunk and make a fort. If the AC turned off by itself as it did, it doubled as a thinner blanket.
It’s soft cotton feel would many-a-time be the sponge to my tears when I was sad. I think I may have even used it as a humongously over-sized tissue when my nose was runny or boogery from crying. Even at this time I didn’t realize we weren’t just friends anymore; it wasn’t just a shoulder to cry on, it became the boyfriend that was too polite to say anything about the dripping snot flowing from my nose. And after, it didn't care if it was washed and hung out to dry.
The time of ‘Binkie’ realization was in Thailand. It became my necessity to all forms of comfort. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Thailand is HOT. At night time, it’s almost impossible to sleep; if it’s not the bugs, or dogs barking, it’s the dampness of the warm night’s air sticking to your skin making you feel like a fruit roll-up when you get caught up in your sheets.
I started using it on an all-day basis; during the day: beach wear; I would even wear it to breakfast then take it off and drape it over my legs like a blanket (wow, the more I write, the more I can’t believe how evident it was). At night it was my leg cover to stop the ants from feasting on me. It's just thin enough to keep the chill off my damp skin.
I started staying in a place where the ants were so small that the mosquito net was just a pain in the ass step between their pincers and my flesh. I became less bothered when they bit my stomach, legs or arms; I was able to feel the little bastards and kill them. I know: not very Buddhist of me in a very Buddhist country.
Again; I was more afraid of them crawling in my ears and nose, mouth and possibly eyes. So I used my trusty sarong to wrap around my head to cover my ears, then going over my eyes, down to my mouth and wrapped back up; only leaving a small opening for my nostrils—they wouldn’t find my nose there: It was too tricky. I even put the burqa to shame.
But, every morning, somehow I would wake-up with the sarong covering only my pillow; I had wrestled the thing off me in my sleep and was easily getting fresh air all over my face.
So, the end is near and I will have to replace it with a younger, more sturdy model. If only it had a twin brother…
Wait: Can you patch a Sarong?
