GREY PLAID PEA COAT

Every second he was conscious that he had a new overcoat on his shoulders, and several times he actually laughed from inward satisfaction.  Indeed, it had two advantages: one that it was warm and the other that it was good.

Nikolai Gogol, “The Overcoat”

My mother-in-law is rather fond of buying things for me, being a generous sort.  My own mother is also rather fond of buying things for me, and as she has been my mother longer than my mother-in-law has been by mother-in-law (which does make sense, all things considered), she has therefore had more opportunity.  Ever since I was quite small my mother has bought me many presents; some of them were quite necessary, such as socks, and some of them were quite wonderfully unnecessary, such as a plaid dress with a ruffle along the bottom.  My mother-in-law has participated in this motherly tradition of necessary presents and wonderfully unnecessary presents.  Really, all things considered, I have had many presents in my day.  It’s almost excessive, when you think about it.  Excessively wonderful.

The particular present which I would like to mention came from my mother-in-law.  She bought me a lightweight pea coat, a lovely little affair of grey plaid.  In the beginning I looked at a plain grey pea coat in a size small.  But there was a grey plaid version which could only be had in a size extra-small.  My mother-in-law was quite convinced that I was an extra-small person and that the plain grey was too safe.  As it was a present, I couldn’t disagree too much.  So the coat was to be the grey plaid, and I was to be an extra-small.

I was really quite enamored with the coat when I saw it.  The grey plaid was as lovely and un-safe as any grey plaid has ever been.  I had almost convinced myself that I was an extra-small, and so the coat fitted me rather well.

It was a dear friend of mine through September and October and on into December.  But around January, it began to get truly cold – the serious kind of cold that makes it hard to feel your nose and forces you to reach up with your fingers, which you can’t feel either, to make sure that it is still there.  Much as I hated to, I was forced to trade in the lovely grey plaid coat for a sturdier, heavier one.  This other coat, which I had before the grey plaid coat ever entered my life, is the warmest coat I think I have ever owned, and it is a great friend of mine when the temperature drops below zero.  And yet, it is not quite as aesthetically pleasing as the grey plaid coat.

So my husband and I developed a system of reference.  We called the grey plaid the “good coat,” because it was indeed very good.  But sometimes circumstances called for warmth rather than fashion, and it was necessary to bring out the warmer coat in the interest of avoiding numbness of the limbs.  I am ashamed to say it, because the warm coat serves its function so well and is really a very exceptional coat, but in our system of reference, it was called the “ugly coat.”  And so there was good, and there was ugly.  Truth be told, warmth is always infinitely to be preferred over good looks.  But we do pay a price for warmth.

This was the way of it.  But my story is not yet finished.

My husband’s outerwear situation was another matter altogether.  He had a wool coat with toggles on the front, and this was his “good” coat.  And my mother-in-law thought how lovely it would be if I also had a toggle coat so that we would match.  Being a mother, she knew that this would be a good present, even though I had of course been doing just fine without a toggle coat.  She knew that I would like one.

And so a third coat entered my closet a year after the grey plaid (to complicate matters in a rather wonderful way!)  And here is the very terrific thing about this third coat, this coat with toggles, which matches my husband’s.  It is warmer than the first “good” coat, but it also is quite good.  That is to say, it is not only very attractive, but it possesses such magnificent qualities of warmth as to make it quite desirable.

I must note, lest the “ugly” coat feel unloved, that it remains in my closet.  There are extreme temperatures which do not allow for good coats, even if they are superior and have toggles.  There come certain days when the priority is warmth, and these days call for us to put aside our pride and wear coats which engulf us in a loving embrace which, if not exactly stylish, is friendly and cozy and necessary enough that we forgive these coats for not being as fair of face as their “good” counterparts. 

I feel that there is a lesson here about worth.  It quite often transcends what is pleasing to our eyes.  Often, the most valuable is not the most beautiful, but because it is valuable it becomes the most beautiful.  A strange paradox, but it is true.  It is something that we know.  But coats help make the matter quite clear.

Of course, there is a place for beautiful coats!  I certainly think so.  I must stop before I begin going round in circles, trying not to offend any of my coats.  They are all such wonderful things, and they are all quite good friends, as they spend a great deal of time hanging together in the closet.

How excessive to have three coats.  Goodness.  I’d hardly realized until now.  But that is the thing about mothers and mothers-in-law.  They are often buying presents – necessary ones, like socks, and wonderfully unnecessary ones, like a plaid dress with a ruffle.  And a grey plaid pea coat.