We were inside Abdalla's in downtown Lafayette in 1961. My mother and I were looking at blouses and shorts folded on a table because it was near my 8th birthday. There was a drab, sleeveless cotton blouse. The pattern of the fabric consisted of little brownish-yellow pears, with leaves near the stems. I don't know why my heart leapt out, and I don't know why I have remembered that moment so often during my life, and, why again now? I wore that blouse over and over till the cloth was tattered, and thin as paper.