The Christmas tree, in a state of undress, casts a long final shadow across the floor. For reasons I can't articulate, I find this affecting and interesting, enough that I have taken multiple pictures of it.
All day long the house has been undressing –- or to be precise, I have been undressing it.
Honestly, though, the mantel does still look pretty Christmasy. I've stripped it back a good bit, and as soon as I can get to the store for more command strips, the two blue Mary paintings are going up on the kitchen wall. Can't have too many Kitchen Madonnas is my philosophy. But the Nativity scene will stay until Candlemas.
This morning I also reorganized my closet. I was outboxing an item for which I've found, I believe, a better replacement –- a gray cotton boatneck J. Jill tunic that I've wanted to like for years now, but have never felt good in, for which I've subbed in a new-to-me gray bamboo tunic top. While I was at it, I decided to rearrange the closet, which had been organized by color, into garment types instead. So: all the dresses, all the skirts, all the t-shirts, all the woven/button shirts, and so on, grouped together, though by color in their respective categories.
If this sounds arduous and obsessive: well, it might be obsessive, but it wasn't that much work. My collection at this point has been pretty streamlined, and is becoming more so, and it didn't take me any time at all to tweak things around. I hope this will help me remember what I have a little better, seeing everything in a given category all together.
So.
Here, first of all, is my collection of dresses in active daily wear (not including the two cotton dresses I wear for nightgowns, and missing the dress I wore yesterday, which is drying on the rack, and the dress I'm wearing today): gray Sierra, blue short- and long-sleeved bamboo dresses [Camellia would hang next to them], burgundy long-sleeved bamboo swing dress, two pink linen dresses, purple cotton Pact dress [purple short-sleeved bamboo swing dress would hang next to it]. Again, these colors please me as a palette on which to base pretty much everything I wear.
Skirts:
Sage-green twill, plus several largely-blue floral or geometric prints, plus the navy gauze split skirt I pulled provisionally out of the outbox.
Pants:
I'm still trying to figure out my organizational principle here, because I actually have more pants of the knit variety, as well as leggings, in this under-bed bin which is not very tidy at the moment:
But anyway, in the closet, for whatever reason, I have kept hanging one pair of charcoal ponte-knit skinny jeans plus one pair of sage-green twill shorts. I'm not sure what the difference is between those items and the ones I've shoved away ignominiously under the bed, but there it is.
Tees, long- and short-sleeved and one basic white tank (missing the merino tee I'm wearing today):
At this point I have four merino tees: navy long-sleeve, blue short-sleeve, pink micro-stripe scoop-neck, grape v-neck. All the rest are cotton except for the gray bamboo tunic that arrived today, and that kind of tie-dye-looking blue-and-white tunic, which is some kind of rayon/viscose knit. I still like it enough to hang onto it, but I'm glad that at this point that most of my knit tops are natural fibers.
Woven/button shirts:
Again the colors please me: mostly blue, some white, one soft grape. There's a kind of sky-blue gauze Indian tunic top that hasn't seen much wear in the last year, but I'm not ready to part with it yet. We'll see whether I reach for it or not.
Jackets/top layers, including blazers, pea coats, fleeces (I still own two), a gray linen hoodie that I don't really know how else to categorize, and my jean jacket:
My little stash of extremely dressy/special occasion items (though I would wear the blue kimono with just about anything, really):
The pink lace thing is also a kimono –– or else it's a negligée or something. I really have not been sure what its intended purpose was, but I have worn it over a dress to church before (and felt a little too OTT, to be honest). It's one of those things I would pull out to dress up a basic swing dress for a wedding. The other two dresses I bought when my daughter was getting married. They were on clearance, and I couldn't decide which one I wanted, so I bought them both. I wound up wearing the champagne-colored one to the wedding, and have worn it since, with my jean jacket and boots, when I wanted to feel a little spangly going out to dinner. I haven't worn the blue one, but have hung onto it, because it doesn't take up that much room and you never know. At least, I haven't known yet.
All that and my sweater drawer, also in a state of disarray:
I need to cull my top drawer, which is underwear plus nightclothes plus random rattier tees, camisoles, and tanks that I have worn when I needed something underneath a low neckline or too-big armholes. But here's where we are right now, and although I could stand to straighten my sweaters and knit trousers, I'm really pretty happy overall. The colors please me and give me plenty of options for combinations. Theoretically I could go months without repeating an outfit, but I'm not going to make that a rule for myself, because if I like something, I want to wear it again.
What I'm wearing today:
My wool Camellia challenge dress over my new-to-me WoolX blue tee, with bamboo leggings, ragg wool socks, and my old thrifted Loft cotton cardigan.
Here's a better shot of the blues together:
As you can see, the tee is bluer/less grayed than the dress, but I think they layer all right. I love the way the duck-egg-blue cardigan looks almost green against these blues.
It's chilly again today, and in between bouts of undecorating I've been outside with Dora, throwing the ball for her and practicing some attention and sniffing games. So I've been glad of the woolly layers, especially when I've gone out without a coat. I could dress this outfit up a little more by wearing boots instead of Birks, but it hasn't been that kind of day. I stepped in some unpleasantness in my Doc Martens, so they've been sitting on the back porch waiting for me to get around to screwing the hose back onto the spigot and wash off the soles. They would have been good with this ensemble, though.
To me the new year really doesn't feel launched until the end of Christmas. Of course, this is inaccurate on two counts: the liturgical new year started in Advent, and we're almost a week into the official calendar year. But there's something about putting away all the holiday finery, clearing surfaces, letting the ordinary daylight shine in at the window, that says: now we're going places. I guess that's been today's theme –- which feels conclusive even though it's only 2:45 in the afternoon. Anyway, that seems like another phrase to hang onto.
Give me the yes. Now we're going places.
Where? I don't know. Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, says the Lord, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head. But I suppose this is what he wants to say to me. Give me the yes. Now we're going places.