Last week a writer friend commented on the notion that writers are known for wearing turtlenecks. That’s news to me even though I am a writer and I wear turtlenecks plus multiple layers. I’m cold. I’m cold at least half of the year even here in Southern California. This comment caused me to count mine. It seems I own 25 turtlenecks–white, off-white, various shades of beige and brown but none dark, several black, two red, two orange, two coral one of which one is darker than the other, two striped (one black and white, one tan and creme), deep green, two hot pink, and one sheer in shades of black and brown and creme and a sort of burgundy color. Another is a color I am not even sure how to describe which I will call pale peach. Since I’ve been the same size for decades, I am guessing some of these border on the ancient but not worn out. I never dry them in the dryer. Drying clothes in the dryer wears them out faster and changes their color.

About one-third of the way through his “Memoirs”, Pablo Neruda talks about a poet friend of his in Spain who wore turtlenecks which Neruda claims was a huge no-no at the time. What does he say poets should wear? Black from head to toe. He had been wearing black practically since birth. His mother died from tuberculosis a month after he was born. Perhaps the endless rain and endless mud he describes in the area of southern Chile where he grew up made wearing black the most practical color. Doubtless the poverty he witnessed as a young man working as a poor employee of tiny Chilean consulates in places like Ceylon (now SriLanka), Indonesia, and India did not inspire him to wear colorful clothes. Then not long after he arrives in Spain, Franco comes to power and one of his best friends, Federico Garcia Lorca is assassinated. As for me, when I am not wearing colorful clothes, I wear black, not due to rain or mud or sadness. The reason I am drawn to black mystifies me–another thing to ponder.

Not sure this qualifies as a turtleneck but it comes close.