Gaudete Sunday already! I am . . . starting to panic a little about Christmas, but trying to remain calm. At least this is one of those Advents where we have a whole week after Advent 4.
We celebrated last night (because every good feast begins its vigil at sundown) with steaks cooked by my husband on the grill, and the good Oktoberfest beer which our pub is still selling in cans until it's all gone. It's a bit unseasonal at this point, I guess, but it's also just about their best beer ever, which is saying something.
I took these photos to send to a Dominican-friar friend in Australia, who is also a beer person. We send each other links to poems we like and pictures of beer we have drunk, all of which leads me to reflect on how lovely the Body of Christ can be. Friendships spring up in the oddest ways and places, triggered by the oddest things, and become nourishing in the most unexpected ways --- nourished not least by the hope you share, because you're facing the same way, into the same sunlight.
I've got to take Dora out in just a moment --- not a peep, by the way, all night in her new crate --- so here quickly is the outfit report for Gaudete Sunday:
Wool& Audrey maxi dress, which was one of my birthday presents, and which I'm really grateful to have gotten when I did. I hope the company will bring back this black-heather color in this style, because it was hugely popular (obviously, since it's sold out completely), and it is a fantastic neutral. It's dark enough, honestly, to read as black in most situations --- maybe not if you play in an orchestra, but otherwise I think it would pass --- but not so harsh that somebody with my coloring can't wear it well.
I've probably said this before, but it's worth saying again: I had kind of forgotten how much I like wearing maxi-length dresses. Even if I don't want to wear them all the time, I love having this option. And I really love how well the dress works as a dark-neutral skirt alternative, too. Here I'm wearing it with my very old thrifted J. Jill ramie pullover, a piece I've hung onto although it's been hard to make the boxy shape work. I've never liked it with trousers --- it just hits in the wrong place and makes me (not a tall, slim, graceful person) look blocky and cut in half. It hasn't worked that well with shorter skirts and swing dresses for much the same reason. BUT I think it does work with the longer, relatively narrow line of this dress-as-a-skirt. You get the 1/3:2/3 proportion that makes a better outfit. So I'm glad I hung onto the sweater, but I'm also really glad I acquired a longer dress that makes the sweater more wearable.
Also wearing: a really old linen scarf my mother gave me years ago, that I tend to forget I own, plus gray Snag merino tights and my trusty Tari boots, another thing I'm glad to have acquired in this putative no-buy year.
So I'm all pink --- not remotely rose --- for Gaudete Sunday, to match my Dollar-Tree candle.
I've been taking these natural-light selfies by my bedroom window just to keep myself honest. I don't always post them, because they get boring and narcissistic (I mean, this whole blog, really . . . ). But they do give me a record of my own aging progress, which interests me, at least, as well as a fairly reliable indication of whether colors are working for me or not. I'm never wearing any makeup; my face is what it is. I have lines and sun damage and flaws, and those are all just products of the Fall, which it seems stupid to deny. At the same time, I like checking the effect of the colors I'm wearing, and I'm glad when those colors highlight what is honestly good about my face, even at its age and level of wear and tear. That's something else to be grateful for, daily, which is really why I take these selfies. Sharing them is maybe a little self-aggrandizing, but it's hard to talk about things like this if I don't share them, so here we are.
OK, off to walk the dog, and then to Mass.