My daughter went out skating last night and came home from the community-college parking lot with this bird skull. From the beak, I'm guessing it's a cardinal, though I need to pull up some images and compare. At any rate, a little memento mori that puts me in mind of a favorite poem of mine, "The Sparrow's Skull," by the mid-20th-century English poet Ruth Pitter.
Here's some more Ruth Pitter, though I've never found my truly favorite poem of hers, "Morning Glory," online to share.
Finished, I believe, with all my work for the week, though I probably need to look again at my cowboy-poetry introductions for next week's Sun before the weekend gets away. This is the first weekend in a while when I haven't had something like that hanging over my head, and small though the work is, it's nice to have it done.
DAY 2, meanwhile, of my self-declared July 4/3 Challenge, in which I allow myself four days a week to wear a swing dress (my default mode, which is becoming maybe a little too much of a default), and challenge myself on the other three days to wear something else, for heaven's sake.
Wearing today, at least until I have to change to go to confession:
Really out of my normal mode here, with my one pair of shorts: thrifted sage-green twill Gap shorts that I've had since last summer. Checking my tracker, I see that I last wore these shorts on the 19th of May, so yeah, come on, time to put them on again. With them, I'm wearing this cotton duck-egg-blue tucked collarless shirt, also thrifted last year, which I really like a lot more than my wearing patterns suggest. According to the tracker, I last wore this shirt on the 1st of May, so again: come on. I haven't been to walk the dog yet, and I might regret wearing cotton when I do, but on the other hand, it'll keep the sun off. I love the interplay of these colors, the soft indeterminate blue against the soft green. I am in a rut, meanwhile, wearing these blue EVA Birks, but they're so easy and comfortable, and the darker blue makes a nice contrast with my lowest hem, while still picking up the limited tonal range of the whole ensemble.
So that's my Saturday look.
One other thing I like is the way the almost-fussy details of the shirt, and its general billowiness, contrast with the extremely basic, tailored shorts. I don't wear many tailored items of clothing, but when I do, I really need something else in the outfit to be soft, loose, feminine, informal against the relative formality of stiffer fabrics and straighter lines. Otherwise I just feel blocky and blah. I wouldn't wear any of my merino tees with these shorts, for example, because they're just basic tees --- and it would be too much boring basic in one outfit, doing very little for me. But this feels kind of perfect: loose pretty shirt, straight shorts. Some structure, but not too much, and mitigated by unstructured gestures (shirt untucked, bottom buttons undone, etc).
So, gonna go walk the dog and roll on into my Saturday.
PS: Regarding this 4/3 challenge, you could tweak it any way you like if you want to do it. It's really just a challenge to vary your habit of reaching for trusty defaults with the deliberate gesture of reaching for something else in your closet. Your "4" doesn't have to be swing dresses. It could be whatever you put on day after day without even thinking about it. And note that you still get to wear that default a lot! There's a lot to be said for favorite things you put on without even thinking about them. It's just that there's also a lot to be said for making yourself reach for something else sometimes, too.
So that's all that's about, and anyone is welcome to join me, on whatever terms work best for you.
UPDATE:
Yeah, cotton after a walk in the heat, man.
No chance this won't need washing after a single wear. And other drawbacks to cotton . . . but if I can stand to keep it on that long, it will dry and be fine, at least for hanging around. AND I can look forward to wearing it more in cooler weather, or as a top layer over a sleeveless dress in situations where I need a light top layer. I did wear it a good bit that way last summer. But wow, there's nothing like putting on cotton after consistently wearing wool and bamboo in the summer . . . and not entirely in a good way.
EVEN LATER:
My husband has decided he wants to go up to the mountains this evening. I was sweltering in the shirt above, so switched it out (hand-washing and hanging it to dry for next time) for this very old blue scoop-neck cotton tee. Yes, cotton again, but this shirt is much lighter and finer, not nearly as hot.
I am dubious about keeping on the shorts --- all of me wants to put on a swing dress. But I do already have them on, and they are nice, and it is different. I'm also dubious about the Xero sandals with this outfit. Something about the proportion seems not quite right, and I might just put my EVA Birks back on, even though they are close to being too matchy with the top. They are a little brighter, at least . . . maybe I can get away with it. I like the shape on my feet better.
[changes shoes]
Yeah, outfit rule or no outfit rule, I like this better:
Anyway, it's nice to have a reason to wear this top, which I've always loved: the graceful scoop neck, the curved hem, the embroidery. I bought it in the Juniors section at our now-defunct Belk something like ten years ago, and I've worn it a lot. It's sprung some tiny holes, which it just today occurred to me that I could easily mend --- not hard to match navy thread, especially if I go darker, as if it were part of the intentional embroidery. I really could have this shirt forever. It always makes me feel like a million bucks, so why not have it forever?