We've arrived at the point in Lent where half of us think next Sunday is Easter and have to be reminded.
PASSION SUNDAY
Images in the church will be veiled, and confession lines will be long, which is not great news for those of us who have been putting it off.
I'm happy to be singing in the diocesan choir for this year's Chrism Mass, and to be going tonight to the first choir practice I've attended in over a year. It will be a small choir of roughly ten, distanced and masked, but I can't wait to see what we're singing and hope that after all this time I can croak it out adequately.
It feels a little incongruous to be talking about clothes, but I did wear them, and here they are.
Smiling at myself adopting the dubious thrifted cardigan as a form of penance. Thrifted Soma dress from last year, with a white cami, since you can see what the dress neckline looks like, camel boots because it's still chilly out, though it's supposed to warm up later, and extremely white spring knees.
A close-up of the dress fabric, which is a pattern of white and periwinkle gray on eggplant purple (a lot purpler than it probably looks in these pictures):
It is a great dress, unbelievably soft and comfortable. I will probably not change into comfy clothes after Mass, because I'm already wearing comfy clothes.
Close-up of the dress fabric with the cardigan:
The whole outfit again:
And onward!
We went to bed late, but did get sleep, mostly because we locked the dog in the study instead of letting him sleep in our room with us. Our dog is old, he coughs a lot, and he wakes us up repeatedly for various reasons all night long. I had to do some cleaning and mopping in the study first thing this morning as a result of confining him there overnight, but I was a lot fresher-as-the daisy doing it than I would otherwise have been. We're in that tough zone with this dog where he's debilitated enough to make our lives somewhat unpleasant (read: incontinent, in both species; yes, it's horrible), but he himself still seems to enjoy life well enough and not to be in any pain, thanks to arthritis meds, so we really haven't arrived at the moment when we say, "This is it, he can't go on any longer."
We sometimes think we can't go on any longer, but somehow it always turns out that we can, and I think it's important that we do. When the time comes, it comes, but we rather hope that it will come upon him, and us, unawares, quietly in the night, rather than our having to decide that it's come. But whatever. Again, I think it's important that we render service to him, this good, kindhearted animal who has been like a household spirit to us as long as we've lived in this house. Seems important for our own souls that we not privilege our convenience over his life, as long as his life is good for him.
If he were a human being, obviously, there would be no qualification at all to that sentence. It would be unambiguously important for our souls that we not privilege convenience over someone else's life, period, the end. But dogs don't reflect on the meaning of life, or find suffering redemptive, or consider their own mortality – they are not, in the words of the poet Jeanne Murray Walker, "creation thinking about itself." As God's good creatures, unself-conscious in the gift of their existence, they are happy enough, I think, to be taken back into His infinite goodness at the end – which for this dog, anyway, has not yet been announced.
Anyway, I'm grateful to have gotten a decent night's sleep. That too is a gift.
MONDAY
Day 2 of the Dog-Sleeps-in-the-Study Challenge. Results so far: another entire night's sleep.
Woulda been even better if a couple of us hadn't had to get up for an early doctor's appointment, but even so.It's one of those spring days that start cold, but (at least are projected to) warm up considerably by afternoon. So I've done layers that can be stripped away as the weather changes throughout the day.
Here's the early-morning doctor's-run iteration of today's outfit:
Gracious, my hair looks weird. In some of these photos I look like somebody trying to be a Helena-Bonham-Carter-as-Princess-Margaret impersonator and not quite pulling it off. Yet again the **cardigan, worn this morning with a thrifted washed-navy/indigo t-shirt dress over an old gray waffle-weave thermal t-shirt and my soft purple leggings and camel boots. As the day wears on and warms up (I hope), my plan is to lose the cardigan and replace the boots with my tan sandals. If it warms up that much, I can always take off the thermal t-shirt layer as well.
I have got to go get my hair cut, and keep putting it off.
**I wore the same cardigan to my own appointment with the same doctor last week. No wonder she recognized me.
New poem up at North American Anglican.
UPDATE: Off with the boots before noon. On with the sandals.
Here's a closeup of the dress with the leggings, since it's hard to read colors in these mirror selfies.
Neither of these items is a particularly fine article of clothing, but they are so soft, like wearing pajamas. I've worn this dress all year round, and even gone hiking in it. I haven't thought much about layering under things when the weather is cooler, but I am liking my long-sleeved thermal shirt under the tee dress today.
(Also: I like outfits that remind me of the Hannah Anderssen dress-and-leggings combos my daughters wore as little girls. This is not so Swedishly colorful, but I could turn cartwheels in it if I wanted to, and if I could turn cartwheels, which I never managed to do, even when I was a little girl.)
Starting a new critical essay for the anthology this week: Mark Jarman, who was my teacher when I was an undergraduate at Vanderbilt in the early 1980s, and who has remained influential for me all these years, though we've cycled in and out of touch. Also, I think I've finished the Welsh-forms poem begun last week – at last!
I'm in the first stages of thinking out my next big grocery order, to cover Holy Week and Easter. I know that the Easter Day menu will feature lamb, asparagus, spinach, and strawberries, but that's as far as I've gotten. We also always do a commemorative Holy Thursday dinner: reading of the appropriate passages from Exodus, reciting of psalms and prayers, but with the obvious Christian focus on Christ as our Passover, and on Holy Thursday as the memorial of the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Generally we have chicken at that dinner, with haroset and some kind of Mediterranean salad. It's a simple dinner, but always very nice, with the good china and silver, a chance to feast before the plunge into the dark-tunnel part of the Triduum.
I also need to do some serious housecleaning, for which I'm having a hard time scraping together any energy or desire.
TUESDAY
Mammogram appointment this afternoon (yippee yay), so I had to wear a two-piece outfit. Casting about in the closet for something to wear that I hadn't worn too recently, I rediscovered this smock-top child's sundress (I forget which daughter it originally belonged to) which I'd rescued from the dress-up box and last worn in the first week of Lent. Here I have attempted it as a skirt, tucking the shoulder straps into the smocked band, with a thrifted smocked-top Loft shirt which is developing holes and going to have to go the way of all, sooner rather than later, and my thrifted purple cable-knit Eddie Bauer cardigan. The knotted waist feels kind of bulky today – not sure how I've gotten it to work better before, but I'll be playing with it between now and time to leave for my appointment.
A distance shot, because sometimes these views tell you things that close-ups don't (like what you might look like to somebody across the room):
I hadn't thought about wearing the furry cardigan with the pink joggers. I assumed they'd clash. But the cardigan reads as almost gray/neutral when juxtaposed with the indubitable pink of those joggers, and I actually kind of like this, as in better than any outfit I have yet attempted with the joggers. I think partly it's the sandals, which make any trouser outfit automatically more flattering than other footwear can hope to do. But also it's the long cardigan. I just need to wear a long cardigan with these joggers. Otherwise, although they are insanely comfortable, they Are Not Flattering.
WEDNESDAY
Trying to get some work done, but having trouble motivating myself. I have a gallbladder ultrasound early this afternoon and can't eat or drink anything for six hours before – and overslept the window in which I might have had a cup of coffee. Offering. It. Up.
It's cloudy and chilly now, though supposed to reach the low 70s (Farenheit) this afternoon. I pulled out a pair of trousers I haven't worn in weeks and paired them with my other smocked purple top, like so:
These sort-of-joggers were another new purchase back in January. They're kind of odd, a slithery, satiny fabric that isn't very warm, so I didn't wear them much in the cold weather. They also look better with sandals than with any kind of closed-toe shoe or boot that I currently have. We'll see how breathable they are in hot weather – they may end up being just a transitional-weather piece. I kind of like them, though. They're harem-pants-like, so look good with a tank or some kind of boho top. I don't have any other pants in this color range, either. They're a bit browner, less green, than the photo makes them appear, so that I tend to think of them as stone instead of green. Purple brings out the green undertone, though. I wore the furry cardigan for warmth, but will switch out to something lighter as the weather warms up.
Detail of this top's smocked yoke:
The flash makes the color lighter and brighter than it is – it's really a fairly dark plum, closer to what you see in the more distanced photo. But this does show you the detail at the top, which I love. I would have a million shirts with smocked detailing like this. I don't go much for ruffles and flounces, but this level of romantic is my language.
Now that I think of it, I really like my pink joggers a lot better with sandals than I do with any other kind of shoe. If I wear sneakers, I'm mentally catapaulted into early-1980s sorority wear, like all I need to complete my life are some big Greek letters across my backside (I wasn't in a sorority, and my life never was completed in that manner, so maybe this is some kind of woundedness issue, who knows). Of course, the pink joggers are fleecy, so how much wear I will get out of them in weather that also permits sandals is . . . questionable. What I need, truly, are some LINEN jogger pants. I wonder if such a thing exists.
THURSDAY: FEAST OF THE ANNUNCIATION
It's raining. Not cold – the high is supposed to be 73F – but pouring rain. I'm about to head out to 11 a.m. Mass at the Abbey; the day also includes grocery shopping because we are Out Of Food (especially if we're going to feast tonight), a mammogram, and if I can fit it in, a haircut.
Today's attire for all that:
Blue for Mary. I have many blue dresses, any one of which I might have opted to wear, but I have this rescheduled mammogram this afternoon, for which I have to wear a 2-piece outfit. I hadn't worn these thrifted ombre Loft skinny jeans in a long time, or this thrifted little dress that's too short to wear as a dress, so out they came. I'm wearing less and less brown as time goes on, but I have liked these jeans a lot. I bought them at Goodwill probably 5 years ago, and they have held up well to a lot of wear over the years. The rise is a little low for my comfort, so I like to pair them with some kind of untucked flowing top. Enter the nifty little knit dress, in some silky, quick-dry, outdoor-type fabric, and a pattern I like. I knew when I bought it that it was too small and short for a dress for me, but I didn't resist its siren call, and here we are. I've always liked it with these jeans, though I need to experiment with other combinations. Wearing it today with my long blue cardigan plus some teal Crocs Mary Janes, which I bought on Ebay.
Dress fabric close-up:
As always, it's hard to get the colors just right onscreen. The background color here is a soft dark-navy/indigo. I usually go for traditional little floral patterns, but like the funkiness of this more geometric one.
UPDATE: Good Mass at Belmont Abbey for the Annunciation. The girl who sat next to me fainted right as we were kneeling for the Consecration – feeling that something was not quite right somehow, I glanced over to see her collapsing onto the floor between the kneeler and the pew and managed to help her not hit her head. Fortunately she didn't pass out completely, so I didn't have to call for a doctor in the middle of the Consecration. After I'd helped her sit back up on the pew, a friend came and joined her and walked up with her for Communion, holding her hand. Afterward she said she was okay, and I hope she was, poor girl.
LATER:
I did get my hair cut, which meant little cut hairs all down the inside of my clothes, which meant that when I got home, I took a bath, rinsed out and reconditioned my hair, and changed clothes. Coulda worn a blue dress to Mass after all. Here's my Seventies vibe to go with my shaggier haircut:
Thrifted tee and jeans, familiar cardigan and sneakers.
Haircut closeup:
I'm not as skeptical about it as I appear in this photo. I had asked for bangs on the short side, to give me plenty of time before I absolutely have to get them cut again. My idea is to grow them out for about six months, as I've more or less done with the bangs I got last time (though I did trim those once on my own between November and March). This time I asked for a lot more layers than I'd gotten last time, including more face-framing layers into which the bangs are blended, so that the effect really is more of a shag, rather than bangs-and-hair-with-some layers.
The waves and curls have sprung up a lot with the extra layers, but my aim really is to have hair that styles itself, ie is supposed to look like I just got out of bed. The one thing I've discovered about the Curly Girl Method, in the years I've dabbled in it with more or less seriousness, is that while the product choices and practices – no sulfates, no silicones, minimal to no heat styling (I do use a diffuser on medium-to-low, at least in the winter) – are good for your hair, and WILL result in a healthier natural look, to get your hair actually to be consistently curly, or to fall into perfect chunky waves, or whatever your goal might be, is a lot of work. I do not want to do a lot of work to have my hair look good. I just want it to look good, period, the way it is. I know that to some degree it will look good no matter what because it's healthy hair, but I also know that if I want it to look styled, yet I don't want to do the work of styling it, then I need a style cut into it that will just BE.
So I am happy to see the return of Seventies hair. I remember Seventies hair from the actual Seventies, and it was pretty hair: lots of rippling silky waves, lots of crazy curls, lots of relaxed satiny layered haircuts . . . this in the era when beer in your shampoo was really getting funky. Mostly people just had natural hair. We might put lemon juice in our hair to lighten it if we were going to lay out (as we said) in the backyard covered in baby oil. We got wings cut into our hair. We got Dorothy Hamill wedge haircuts. But mostly . . . people just had hair and looked like people, and it was all right.
Me, feeling all right:
FRIDAY
Feast day's over. Back to the Lenten grind, and feeling great about it.
After all the bustle of the week – doctors' appointments, scans, mammogram, etc. – today all I have on the docket is work. I'm going to have to bust it a little if I'm going to finish my requisite critical essay for this week. In an email exchange yesterday, my anthology co-editor said he was aiming for two to three essays a week between now and May, which . . . well, he's also teaching a full load and has various other commitments on his plate, with the result that right now I'm ahead in terms of essays written, but that could change in a hurry if I don't step up my own pace. Granted, this is not a race, and he is hoping to be finished with his essays by the first of May, in order to write the introductory essay for the anthology. That's time when I can still be writing my poet essays. Still, I've been managing one a week for some time now, but I'd better focus hard if I'm going to make it this week.
We've had gallons and gallons of rain this week, but today it seems to have stopped, and the high is supposed to be nearly 80F. Here's what I put on:
Thrifted gray jersey dress, purple leggings, navy EVA Birkenstocks. It felt a little boring, so . . .
I added a cardigan I really didn't need for warmth. Fortunately this one is more air than cardigan. People always ask me if I made it, and alas, I did not. It's a thrifted Pierre Cardin number from some years ago, but it always adds a little something.
I did comb out, then mist my hair with water to get my curls going again. With all the moisture in the air, it's pretty frizzy, but what care I for frizz? The new haircut did hold up well to being slept on. Many curly-wavy-hair ladies protect their curls when they sleep, at least with a silk pillow, if not with a cap or buff, or a "pineapple" bun on top of the head. I just can't. Aside from the fact that I can't sleep with anything on my head, even a hair tie, all of this is a little too reminiscent of ladies of my grandmothers' generation who slept in rollers or caps, with cold cream all over their faces – and their husbands slept somewhere else. Their hair and faces were for daytime, for public presentation, and for other people. That's not really how I want to live, or how I want to conduct my marriage. Granted, when you live with somebody for thirty-plus years, that person is going to see things about you that nobody else sees, and those things will not always be beautiful. Often they will be the antithesis of beautiful (mostly things you say and do, not presentations of your face and hair).
But I don't know. I entertain this hangup about not ever having my face come as a surprise to anybody over the breakfast table. What I look like is what I look like, and I look like that twenty-four hours a day, in private as in public, for everybody in my life. Mind you, I do take some care with what I look like. I massage coconut oil into my face at night. I make a little effort with my hair in the morning. I go for walks and eat as well as I can and try to get adequate sleep, because all these things have knock-on effects for your body, your skin, and your hair. I try to wear colors that look good on me, that make me look good. (As you can probably see from the week's close-up selfies, gray is okay, but blue is true).
What I don't want, however, is artifice. And I particularly don't want my husband's view of me, in our private life, to be all the backstage part of the effect. He deserves the same face that I would show to any stranger. If anything, he deserves it more. Now, he would love me regardless of the face I put on at night. He would love me through inches of cold cream and the armory of curlers and anything else. But why should he have to? I am not, unlike Midge Maisel of the first season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (a show I really didn't think was all that marvelous, so I haven't watched the subsequent seasons), going to leap out of bed early to make up my face and do my hair, so that my husband awakens daily to perfection incarnate in me. Instead, I wake up human, as I am, and human, as I am, I live my day.
All that to say: I really like this haircut. By and large, I also like my 56-year-old face. If it's not exactly the face my husband married, it's the face he's married to, and I think we're both pretty happy with that state of affairs.
Also, the ghazal has been my experimental poetic form of the week.
And so to work.
SATURDAY
The lawnmowing son is lawnmowing. The Russian-learning daughter is learning Russian. The husband is out having coffee with a friend. I have been repotting orchids and revising my poetry book manuscript, to toss out into the void this week.
I had repotted the center one, the one with a single little shark-fin leaf blade, last weekend. Repotted the one on the left today. I'll have to get more orchid compound before I repot the blooming one on the right, but it will undoubtedly need it.
I move them around a good bit in search of the right window. They seem to like that east-facing windowsill looking onto the back porch; they also like being near the east-facing back-porch window in the study.
The top of a bookcase has become something of a family altar.
Wider and wider shots of the same corner.
The icon wall over our (non-functional) living-room fireplace has long been a prayer focal point in our house, but given how much time we spend in the study, especially in the winter, because the gas fireplace in that room does work, it's nice to have a similar oratory wall there as well. A shot of the living room from early last fall – the mantel decor changes with the seasons, but the icons stay the same:
As with my clothing, most of my home decor is secondhand. Of the furnishings visible in this photograph, the white sofa and the rug came from my mother's house. The little table to the left of the fireplace and the table you really can't see to the left of the white sofa belonged to my paternal grandparents. The tall rocking chair came from my husband's grandfather. I bought the blue rocker in an antique store for my birthday more than ten years ago. The big gold chair – known in this house as The Throne of Bourgeois Decadence – is one that some friends of ours had gotten on Craigslist, then were trying to get rid of. One of our daughters, aged about eight at the time, fell in love with it, because who doesn't love a throne? While we were waffling about it, the friends got proactive and left it on our front porch, so there it is. My brother made the coffee table, and I bought that ottoman on Overstock for reasons I can't now remember, but my husband sure does like to put his feet on it and spread out his books on either side.
Anyway, that's what our whole house is like, pretty much: a mishmash of things that have come to us in roundabout ways, with a handful of items we actually chose, and an even smaller handful of items that we actually bought new. I think if we had to go into a store and pick out a houseful of furniture, we'd probably either have a mutual nervous breakdown or get a divorce, or both. Truly, what we have is the better portion.
What I wore today:
Replayed yesterday's cardigan and Wednesday's smock-detail purple tank, with my other pair of wide-leg drawstring pants from Target, circa 2006. I wore the bone-colored pair two weeks ago, during the Style Spark Challenge. This sage-green pair is really my favorite (is? are?), just a great color with everything in my closet. As I might have said before, over the years I have kept putting these pants (all of them in this style) in the outbox, but taking them out again. Though I think I'm going to let the brown pair go this time, I have not regretted keeping these over many years. They have held up remarkably well, are soft and washed and comfortable, can dress up or down, and make a nice alternative to either shorts or a skirt in warm weather. They don't make me look especially skeeenny, but in truth, I'm not especially skeeennny, so what did I expect?
Didn't sleep especially well last night, but I'll do.
Got a pot roast in the crockpot for a Saturday-night/Vigil relaxation of our Lenten austerities – only a week now till the great Feast! Here's to the end of the last week of Lent, proper, and the start of Holy Week.