One more print, though the photo's a tad crooked --- this I think is a copperplate etching, but I'm not sure.
Hooray, hooray, the sun is out today! It's chilly and will be cold tonight, but it's nice to see the blue sky again after a day of dreariness.
A busy day, trying to tie off this copy-editing for the week. Did I mention before that I'm not doing the Audible narration for Works of Mercy after all? Should I admit that I'm not even the tiniest bit disappointed about that? The more I thought about it, the more I was stressing about it and putting off getting started, so I am all relief regarding that decision.
Thinking a bit about sustainability, etc, and also laundry, after hanging out a bit in some online conversations this morning, while I waited for my hair to dry enough to go outside . . .
1. Although I get that for a Catholic, sustainability is part of the vision of, say, Laudato Si, I think it's really easy to elevate things like that (looking at you, stupid minimalism) to the level of a religion. It's not a religion. Yes, sustainability is related to faith and morals in the sense that we are called to make decisions based on principles like good stewardship and Catholic social-justic teaching regarding employer-employee relations, fair wages, and the like. It would be wrong, I think, to pretend that those things don't matter. In fact, I see too many Catholic employers in my own milieu who do seem to proceed as though those things didn't matter, and that makes me angry. I don't want to be anything but mindful of my own responsibility to act as justly and with as much gratitude as I can in this world. I need, always, to attend first to the log in my own eye. At the same time, sustainability isn't the sum total of my religion. It's not THE substance of faith and morals for me. Not even close.
2. Anybody who's been reading here for any amount of time has already read my rantings on minimalism as a faux religion. Let me just say it one more time: it IS a faux religion. It has no intrinsic virtue, and imparts no particular virtue, in and of itself. Detachment is virtuous, to be sure, but like most virtues, you can't actually quantify it, as in having X number of whatever it is. Having fewer things doesn't necessarily mean having more detachment. You might very well simply have transferred your attachment from the things themselves to the idea of not having things. Gluttony, as a particular kind of disordered relationship, covers anorexia as well as eating too much. The skeletally thin person can suffer from it as much as the morbidly obese. If you're reading this and you're stressing out because you can't seem to get minimalist enough, which generally means as minimalist as other people seem to be, please stop doing that to yourself.
3. There is a limit to your ability to control anything in this world. I think that if you are worrying about clothing, say, that you don't want to wear anymore, for whatever reason, but that you're afraid to let go because it might go to the landfill: well, either you can go on letting it take up space in your home and in your brain, or not. You can let it go, in whatever way works for you. Say a prayer that somebody else will be able to wear and use it. The problem with articles that tell you that 90% of donated clothing ends up in the landfill is not that they're untrue, but that it's too easy to accept them as all the truth that exists. It's easy to feel that you live in an actually grace-free universe where anything you do, even in good faith, is going to end up being wrong, and you're going to end up being culpable for it. I think Satan rejoices in your feeling that way. Donate your damn clothes if you're not going to wear them. Be more careful in your purchases going forward. Accept that beyond that extremely limited point, you cannot control outcomes. Pray for good outcomes, trust God, believe that what you do sincerely in the service of charity is covered by grace. Do the best you can, and stop tying yourself up in knots about what might happen, for example, to clothes you do not actually want to wear anymore.
4. Yes, one advantage of wearing a lot of wool is that you don't do so much laundry. I've had an unusual couple of weeks in that department, mostly because my kids left stuff behind that needed washing, I needed to wash all the sheets, I went ahead and washed curtains while I was at it, and while I was at it I also washed 4 of my 5 current dresses, because I couldn't actually remember the last time I'd done that. Now, this last is exactly what I want. I had worn my Audrey dress a lot since I got her in early November, and only washed her for the first time last week. I do still do loads of underwear and socks, but with only two of us, I don't have to do that many per week. My husband tends to rack up a fair amount of laundry, mostly because he still wears synthetic tees and shorts to work out. He wants to hang these things on the back of the bathroom door for weeks, but they stink, so I take them down and wash them. But yeah, in general---well, really in general, I do far less laundry for two people than I did for four or six. But even for two people, I do far less laundry dressing the way I dress than I did when I didn't dress this way, and that's good. It's a good thing to do that's readily within my reach. Is this total simplicity? Nope. But it's a measure of simplicity on a relative scale, and I'm good with that.
If this is a pep talk, please understand that it's a pep talk I'm giving myself as much as anybody else who might happen upon it. There are themes in certain conversations that honestly stress me out, and I have to talk myself down. It is so tempting to want to live perfectly in this world, which is not the same thing at all as wanting to be made holy in it. The former entails no grace --- you're just supposed to do better. The latter is all grace. You know you can't do better, except in very, very limited ways. Moreover, you know you can't be better, not without a lot of help.Yes, in humility you always seek to choose the better way, and to eschew complacency about the way you live and act in the world. But in humility you also acknowledge that you can't follow every action of yours around, to make sure that its consequences are exactly what you intended. Ultimately I think that a great part of detachment is to do the best you can, given whatever contingencies, and then to let go of what is done.
Yeah, so. In other news, I received, in today's mail, a royalty check for Works of Mercy. Other than royalties for recorded classes I've taught, which have come in in small but welcome drips over the years, this is the first royalty check I've ever received (poetry doesn't sell well enough ever to break even, apparently). And this was --- not enough to live on for the coming year, to put it mildly, but enough to pay for everything I have bought in January: clothes, including my new Wool& Willow dress due to arrive on Monday, and my new glasses. I had made enough from my Sun writing already to pay for those things and more, but . . . what a novelty for me --- me! ---to have money coming in with my name on it, that more than exceeds the money going out, spent by me, on things for myself. What a thoroughly pleasant development.
Still reading Nicholas Nickleby, which is quite the ride. I can see how it's not one of Dickens' great novels, but I can also see why people have read it continuously since its initial publication in serial form.
Having had my long walk with Dora in the sunshine, including half an hour in the dog park, I need to buckle down to some work. But first, what am I wearing today? Always the question . . .
It's my Wool& Maggie's turn today, with this thrifted silk-cashmere beaded cardigan that I always like with Maggie. Snag merino tights in navy, thrifted Birkenstock Madeiras. I'm also wearing my Eileen Fisher merino camisole/tank underneath for a base layer, but it doesn't show. I could put on a belt with this outfit, and that might improve it, but I haven't yet.
Here's my morning face with half-dry hair:
Still wearing these glasses, still happy with how I'm seeing through them. It's funny, I went back and read the reviews, which I clearly hadn't done before I bought them --- literally every reviewer remarks on having been surprised by the weird little side "fins" on these frames. So it's not just me. If I'd read the reviews, I might not have bought the glasses, but on the whole I'm not sorry I did. I DID read reviews, look at other people's pictures, and think hard before I pressed Complete Order on my new ones, though. I've come not to mind the fin thingies so much, meanwhile. Some reviewer described them as "vaguely steampunk," and OK. I can be "vaguely steampunk" --- very "vaguely steampunk."
So, work today, and the pub tonight. I have been scrupulously observing my "dryer January," and feeling so much better that I think I want the whole year to be a lot "dryer" than it might be, but until Lent, I'm not giving up pub night. I can, by the way, report that "dealcoholized wine" is about as exciting as "non-alcoholic gin and tonic." In other words, would you like some curiously flat grape juice? Or some expensive tonic water in a nice little bottle?
For a "dry" experience that doesn't feel depressingly virtuous or sacrificial, beer remains the way to go. That's my vote. Last night my husband, who is not doing dry anything, brought home some O'Doul's for me to have while he drank wine. Let me tell you, I remember O'Douls as really disappointing, thirty years ago when I drank it during pregnancy. When I saw that he'd bought it, I said, "Oh . . . ," in tones that fell short of exultant. Reader, I don't know whether my tastes have changed, or whether the company has improved the beer, but honestly, as a light lager, this O'Doul's was pretty good. Not nearly as good as Beck's non-alcoholic beer, but decidedly drinkable. It was to Beck's non-alcoholic as Moosehead Lager would be to regular Beck's. Which is to say, really, that both those things, in their non-alcoholic state, taste pretty much like their alcoholic counterparts, or at least close enough that you don't miss the alcohol component. With the beef-bone-broth based vegetable soup we had for dinner last night, it was a pleasant accompaniment. I still have almost two full six-packs of Athletic Brewing Company's All-Out stout, which I like, though so far their ESB is the best of the whole lineup. I'll definitely order it again. Tonight I will enjoy my real beer, brewed with a great love for the craft by my neighbors. But other nights? I'm fine with what tastes like beer and smells like beer and drinks like beer, but gives my aging liver a rest.
UPDATE:
Maggie with belt.
