During the last year or so of my time in TF I found, in a home's forsake all, a jean jacket with a red lining. There was something about that lining that made it stand out (I've never seen one since). I can't remember what home I was in when I found it, but it might have been Macau. I do remember being told that the former owner had to forsake it because it fed her/his pride. I have a vague memory of a long-standing policy against wearing jeans, and I can't remember ever wearing jeans the entire 16 years I was in TF, until I came across this jean jacket. That jacket was one of the few possessions I took with me when I left. I'm glad I did because when I arrived back in my home country I felt and looked like a foreigner in my own land. That jacket was about the only piece of clothing I had that didn't make me look completely dorky.
Three years after leaving the cult I wrote the following poem for a second year university poetry course. (hopefully the formatting will stay the same after I hit the send button.)
JEAN JACKET
That jean jacket lined with red
inherited from the "reprobate"
was my uniform of rebellion
though no one knew.
I knew from the moment I slid
into its sleeves
and its body hugged mine.
I was an outsider.
“The sin of pride” they said
but I took pride in my sin
scarlet within faded blue.
It served me well that jacket
from one life to the next.