Valerie Roney

I miss that zip-zip sound corduroy pants used to make when I was a kid. Cords seem to have lost something from the ribbed pants of my stripey-shirted, yes-avacado-is-a-colour-and-it-goes-great-with-pumpkin, 70’s childhood.

So, I’ve been wondering as I walk around, my pants more of a stuttered whisper than that zip-zip I used to love, what’s changed? Is it the fabric? The polyester blends of decades ago certainly had a, well, stiffness to them that is hard to find today (thank God!). Or perhaps that growth spurt into adulthood left my thighs no longer rubbing together like they did when I was a kid (yep, those broad-girth birthin’ hips may just have changed my gait). It could be simple proximity. Being as I’m a couple of feet taller than I was when I was eight, it could simply be my ears are further away from that zip-zip sound and thus it seems diminished. Of course a couple of decades of adult ears subjected to grunge bars and samba drumming may have simply diminished my auditory acuity period.

What I fear may really have diminished however is my sense of wonder. As a kid, something as simple as the zip-zip of your pants could be utterly captivating. Living in the moment, aware only of the sound of your own movement – caught up in how totally cool that was! Now, as I walk, my head is full of busy thoughts, none of them anywhere near what my pants may be doing. And when I do catch a hint of that distant zip-zip, it merely flashes a remembrance of childhood fascination before my mind pulls me back into a thousand hurried thinkings.

So if you see me walking down the street in my corduroy pants, a little knock kneed (trying to compensate for that puberty-altered pelvis), head cocked to the side, you’ll know I’m listening carefully. Captivated, recapturing my sense of wonder. As I follow, fascinated, the zip-zip sound of my new corduroy pants.