Red hearts are for people who live somewhere with a functional spring. Here, the heart is brown, because that is the official color of the state from mid February until roughly Memorial Day: snowbanks that have absorbed nine weeks of road grit, the puddle in the driveway, the slush that lands on your boots and your soul. It is also the color of gravy, of cream of mushroom casserole with crispy potato bits on top, of the lake coffee your aunt keeps pouring whether you asked or not.
So yes, brown heart. It is love, but seasoned. It is standing outside in negative twenty degrees saying "could be worse" and genuinely meaning it. It is passive aggressive affection in wearable form, which is the most local thing imaginable.
Cut from soft, substantial fabric that holds its shape through winter, false spring, second winter, and whatever the sky is doing in June. The print stays sharp wash after wash, so the sentiment outlasts the slush.
