Another view of my neighborhood in variable afternoon sun yesterday. I love this neighborhood so much. Because we're a small town, we don't have whole separate sections that are "nice" or "not nice" --- it literally changes street to street. This particular street is kind of modest, though it also features some of my favorite front-porch-cottage houses. The Park Road loop, which circles a ravine behind the old high-school gym, has a couple of showplace houses (well, really, ONE that I can think of), but also a log cabin. There's always something interesting to see, day to day, when you go tramping around here, though in the autumn the trees are really their own reward. That red maple on the far left corner, though, is currently the neighborhood dazzler. Cute little house, but you hardly notice it right now for the tree.
My own street, one block west of this one, is quirky as well. The whole west side of the street is community college, with buildings and a big parking lot. The east side is a parking lot (on the site of the old school tennis courts, according to longtime locals), then a vacant lot which was the property of Mrs. Bea McCutcheon, aged 95 when we moved here. When she died, the community college bought her house and summarily knocked it down, intending to extend the parking lot --- a move which thankfully got axed in a City Council meeting. The existing parking lot on the corner on that side of the street is literally always empty, so it's not like they really needed the space. Now we just have a vacant lot there, which the college does keep mowed and tidy. My kids used to play there, and it's a good place for dog training.
So we're down to four houses on our quirky little block: the Heavners' old house (don't know the new people's names, though we always say hello), Jane and Steve, us, Beth and Eddie. This plot of land originally belonged to what we all call "The Pink House," around the corner: a big Victorian-era piece of what looks like New Orleans, with plantation shutters and front veranda, dropped by accident into Lincoln County, North Carolina. Those people used to own the whole block, at least, but hit hard enough times after World War One that they wanted or needed to sell off lots. Our house was built (relatively cheaply) in 1922, which I'm guessing is the same year as both Jane and Steve's house (similar to ours, though not quite as Cape Coddy, with a single square dormer upstairs) and Beth and Eddie's, which is like a smaller version of our house in brick. The Heavners' house, on the other side of Jane and Steve, is a Dutch Colonial/Revival/I forget exactly what you call this style --- the sort of barnlike roof, with a curved cornice over the front door instead of a porch. It LOOKS more 1930s than 1920s though of course I could check the real-estate records to find out when it was built. The new people bought it for what seemed to us an insane amount of money, last year, when everything was selling for what seemed to us an insane amount of money. We could have sold our own house for an insane amount of money, but then we'd have had to buy something else, which even if we'd really wanted to sell would have stopped us in our tracks.
Anyway, I like my neighborhood and everything within walking distance, which is basically the entire center of town. We have friends who live rurally on beautiful land, and sometimes I get homestead envy, but truly: I like it here. I like that I can go all week without driving anywhere. I also like that I can grow a lot of food on the land I have, without needing a whole lot of it. AND I like that even in the middle of a fairly densely settled area, it's still pretty.
OK, so, today's agenda:
*finish my last Sun essay for next week
*prep for a podcast recording late this afternoon, to talk (with Micah Mattix) about Christian Poetry in America Since 1940. Our interviewer is a guy from BYU, who's sent us some really thought-provoking questions . . . so I guess I'd better provoke my thoughts before we record this conversation.
*obvious daily stuff like walk the dog and write some hendecasyllabic lines --- as one does, daily.
It's cooler today. Wearing:
Maggie dress with navy merino tights, thrifted pink Icebreaker micro-stripe tee, thrifted alpaca cardigan, thrifted Birkenstock Madeiras. Maggie is feeling a little stretched out after much wear last week, but one of the advantages of taking a photo is that I can see beyond my initial perceptions. I always feel that this dress is bigger and longer than she is (and yes, I have some lingering regrets about buying a medium long, rather than either a medium regular or a small long, but given where the shoulder seams fall, I'm usually glad I didn't buy a small). The photo, though, shows me a dress that still hits above my knees, that isn't swallowing me in fabric after all. I always like her with the vertical swing of this particular cardigan, which shows up nicely against the marine blue backdrop of the dress. I'm not totally sold on the neckline clutter that the tee provides, but on the other hand, it's warm and not bad. I'll probably lose the tee for the podcast recording, since we're going to be on Zoom, and although the podcast itself won't have video, I know I'll want to feel professional and put together to talk to these guys. Also, the husband has intimated that we'll go out to dinner, so I will want to tweak the outfit a little for a date night.
A closer view:
And closer still:
These colors are great, though it still feels to me that there's a little much happening around the neckline. Just me? Again, though, the colors seem on point, which makes me think that if Wool& made more dresses in that cerise color, I might buy one. I'm not sure I want another Camellia, but I do like the color a lot.
Also, I did go ahead and wash my hair last night, so that it would be dry all day today. I may go get that trim, if I can make myself get in the car and do it.
LATER:
Without giving away the identity of my birthday dress, let me say how much I'm looking forward to a wool dress with long sleeves, that I can wear as she comes (I hope) without having to layer in cooler weather. I was hot in my cardigan, walking the dog today, but it's not quite warm enough for short sleeves, even in the sun.
But the trees were looking lovely. I feel the need to document the fleeting autumn, day by day. So soon it will give way to winter, and these trees will be bare and gray for what will feel like forever. And it will be a long time before they're beautiful in precisely this way again. Hold 'em while you got 'em.
Oh, I did also pull the trigger on some more dye and color remover, to transform at least one of my dark-brown cardigans. I bought only one dye color --- wine, because I really want at least one burgundy cardigan --- but we'll see. I think I'll strip out both cardigans, ponder, and pick one to turn wine-red. These are both cotton-ramie cardigans, so it'll be a salt dye, not acid. I'll be curious, too, to see what they look like with the color stripped out. It's possible that I'll leave one (or both) undyed. I'm excited, at any rate, to refurbish cardigans that I love but am not wearing, because the brown is really not doing it for me. And it will be nice to have some more red --- I'm thinking that this will be more red than burgundy, brighter and clearer, but still in a range that looks good on me. It'll be good to have something like that for Christmas, Holy Week, Pentecost, etc.
The one exception, by the way, to the no-brown-for-me rule in my closet is a J. Crew suede pea coat I bought about five years ago at Goodwill, for $7.99. It is absolutely the nicest item of clothing I own. I do wear it, because it's so beautiful, and all the color-typers can bite me. I don't want to wear a whole lot of dark brown, but I do have brown hair, and this isn't an orangey brown. It's not my best color, and I don't want a chocolate-brown dress, but for a coat, it works. I've had it for years, and I still gloat over the fact that I got it for less than $10. Real suede leather. Unbelievably lovely. Anyway, not touching that with any dye, just wearing it.