A Desirable Patina

I’ve been busily working my way towards earning my Bachelor’s Degree – officially my longest running UFO. I went to college immediately after high school, but never finished. I’ve dabbled a bit here and there, but finally decided to push through and earn my final 10 classes with SNHU. Class #4 has been Creative Nonfiction, and it has been perfect for me. Here is a piece I wrote this week, inspired by the embroidery piece below, which incorporates a found object. The phrase “desirable patina” has been a running joke between my husband and I for years. Today I’m sharing it with you.

This is the page in my stitch journal that began this whole piece. While walking my dog I found this little metal heart. I think it used to live on a chain, probably as part of a bracelet. I have no facts about its existence before I found it, other than that it was lying in the parking lot and looked like it had been driven over and rained on. Since I’m a magpie and love found objects, I brought it home even though it’s clearly broken trash. I stitched it down and thought about it. It had a life before I found it, and now it has a new one. I don’t mind the scratches and dangling bits of chain. I’m open to this little heart’s desirable patina.

A Desirable Patina – Jennifer Strauser – August 15, 2022

Do you ever hear a phrase that just sticks with you over the years? Something that resonates but you don’t know why? Desirable Patina has been with me since the early 2000’s. I had a Zoom meeting today and noticed my grey hairs and wrinkles are starting to show on camera. The skin around my eyes is starting to look thin and stretched. I’m developing my own desirable patina. 

In 2011 my family took a trip to Cape San Blas, on the Florida panhandle. The road trip was delightful, with large black snakes lying across the road as we drove through Tate’s Hell State Forest. There was screaming. It was me. Other notable sights – swamps. So many swamps. We were only driving from Central Florida, so I knew better than to expect grand vistas. When you drive through central Florida to the gulf coast you will see swamps, palm trees, palm trees in swamps, and cattle fields with palm trees and puddles. These are interspersed with strip malls and churches.

It was bright and sunny for our trip, as one would expect in the Sunshine State. On an expedition to Port St Joe, my husband spotted a Tilley hat in a shop, and he was smitten. Tilley hats are fancy and expensive, but come with a lifetime guarantee. They even talk about one fortunate hat that went through the digestive tract of an elephant, and after a wash was ready to wear once again. The tag on the hat explained how to properly care for it, and explained that due to the marvelous adventures you would have with your Tilley hat, the brass grommets would develop a “desirable patina” over time. We laughed for a while over this, exclaiming over the concept of desirable patina. He selected a beige one and still has it. 

The Tilley hat has been to beaches in Florida, Texas, California, and all over the Caribbean. It has been on a muddy jungle hike in Hawaii, and on boat trips in Upstate New York. It has even been shared with a monkey in Dominica. Luckily, nothing has eaten it, because no amount of washing will get a pooped-out hat onto my husband’s head. Even without the digestive detour, this hat has had a life. You can tell, because the grommets are brown with green flecks! 

Now that I’m older, I’ve taken some marketing classes and I see the genius of the desirable patina. It’s a brilliant marketing concept. Rather than explaining the science of brass oxidation, or how to polish the grommets and keep them looking like new, Tilley hats decided to embrace the patina. A hat with a discolored grommet has led a life we can only imagine, full of beach days, sunny hikes, and boat trips. Much like the velveteen rabbit, the Tilley hat is better when it is old and used. Shiny new brass grommets are for new hats, not cool hats.

Other than exclaiming “does it have a desirable patina yet” every time my husband takes his hat out of the closet, I like to use the phrase inappropriately. When asked if I have cleaned the kitchen – “no, I’m letting it develop a desirable patina.” When asked if I have taken the car to the car wash “no, I’m working on the desirable patina.” The dog needs a bath – you can probably guess. I imagine that by now my husband is regretting his choice of hat, at the very least. 

This all brings me back to the notion of aging gracefully being a desirable patina. What I really love about this is that it asks me to accept natural changes and embrace the wear that comes with aging. At 49, some of that wear is starting to show on MY FACE. Some of my skin is thinning, and it is sagging and wrinkling a little in places. Other places are turning brown. I’m starting to develop noticeable grey hairs around my hairline. I feel unspoken pressure to go find anti-wrinkle cream and hair dye to make my face look like it did when I was in my 30’s. But what if I just embrace my desirable patina? 

I think this next chapter of my life will focus as much on my appearance as the last chapter, which is to say, not at all. I’m not going to fight with my wrinkles. I’m not going to dye my hair. There won’t be any collagen fillers or botox or any of that. Why waste my time? The only person I want to find me attractive does, and that’s good enough. 

Hey, if you need to fight aging, go for it. There is no judgment here. I am not trying to be a virtuous nature maven – honestly, I’m just spinning my laziness. But it feels good. Just accepting that as I get older I will look older is fine. My face and body look like I’ve done stuff because I have. I’ve spent time in the sun, I’ve manufactured new humans, I’ve eaten yummy food. I’ll continue to do stuff in the sun and eat yummy foods. (New humans won’t be happening in this vessel anymore, thank the goddess.) 

So, if you are getting ready to go to the drug store to fight time with lotions and potions, give yourself a minute to decide if you really want to. Consider embracing your patina. You have lived a life, and it shows. That isn’t a bad thing.

Thanks for reading!

More about my morning embroidery project.

More about this piece

The lacey bit is a “mesh tape” I ordered from Taperology. I secured it to the page by taking little stitches here and there. My lettering needs work, but it’s legible. I fooled around with the knotted chain stitch and sheaf stitch from Sue Spargo’s Creative Hand Stitching book. Threads are a mix of perle cottons, Spagetti, and other stuff I threw out the labels for. Background fabric is Essex Linen in charcoal, I think. I buy a lot of Essex and other textured fabrics, and they don’t have printed selvages.