I received my first cashmere sweater this last fall. When I visited my grandmother in October, she took me on a shopping spree, despite being seriously ill and unable to walk the day before. What can I say? She loves shopping! Walking through the mall, she asked me what store I would like to go to, because she’d like to buy me a few things. She generously told me to “choose anything I liked.” We bantered back and forth as I am really much too old to have my grandmother buying me clothes. I should be the one buying her clothes. As with all battles with her, she won me over. We headed to, I’m sure you’ll find out soon enough, one of my favorite stores—J. Crew. Say, whatever you want to say, dear internet, but I love that store. Clean lines. A few twists here and there to make it different from the basics in amazing colors…As much as I love this store, though, because I’m such the economizer, I’ve rarely bought anything more from there other than the occasional tissue tee or ribbed tank top and always, of course, on sale. So, with my grandmother’s generous offer, I took this opportunity to get an item I’ve long coveted, but could never rationalize buying…a cashmere sweater. Fortunately, hanging on the sales rack and in my size, no less, was a beautiful discounted grey cashmere sailor-stripe boatneck sweater with perfect evenly spaced white stripes.

It’s become my favorite item of clothing that I absolutely love to wear. It’s not only because it feels luxurious to me (I know, I know previous Crew sweaters have been much better quality, blah, blah, blah), it keeps me warm, it’s soft and reminds me of the feel of sitting in front of a roaring fire, because, yes, it’s that soft and cozy, but mostly because my grandmother bought it for me just because she knew I liked it.

So why Cashmere Papers? Because that’s what I hope writing will be for me. In college, I became a creative writing major. It was unexpected, but in the end, felt fitting. In that time, I always dreamed of becoming a writer. Unfortunately, that was the last time, I really sat down to write. Since then, I’ve lived in a foreign country a number of years, got married, became a campus minster where my life became something other than my own, and now have time to rest. I’ve procrastinated doing any writing because the few times I’ve tried to sit down to write, I was disappointed to find that my voice wasn’t quite as articulate, wasn’t quite as sharp and witty as I once believed it to be. What, perhaps, is the saddest thing of all, is it has become foreign to me. So I’m dedicating this blog to simply writing again. It’s my hope that it’ll change into something reminiscent like my favorite piece of clothing—something luxurious, keeps me warm, is soft and cozy and reminds me of wonderful things like my grandmother’s kindness.