Yet another Kitchen Madonna: a Raphael Mary plaque (found at the dollar store years ago) set on a tray we got for a wedding present, with ginger jar and bucket of implements, on the back of my stove.
Monday morning, a new week, an empty house again, since we put the Viking Son on the plane to Dallas last night. He moves into his dorm today and begins May Term classes tomorrow --- off to the races for this next little chapter.
Trying to recollect my reading thus far this year, since I've fallen off the wagon of reporting it on Mondays. I've fallen off lots of wagons, which is not exactly news, but just what happens to all my good intentions all the time, over and over. Specifically, I've fallen off reading wagons: Understanding Poetry (which I really do need to get back to, since I'm building a class around it for the fall), the Bible-in-a-Year . . . I'm reading the Mass readings more or less daily, but having a hard time pushing myself back to the Book of Joshua.
BUT what I have been reading is novels. This year so far (to the best of my recollection):
Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald
Aiding and Abetting, Muriel Spark
The following by Charles Dickens:
Hard Times
Nicholas Nickleby
Our Mutual Friend
Dombey and Son
Martin Chuzzlewit
Barnaby Rudge
The Old Curiosity Shop
and now Oliver Twist.
After this, I suppose I should revisit A Tale of Two Cities, which I last read in high school. I have a real aversion to the cruelty and violence of the French Revolution, and have been avoiding rereading this novel for that reason, but you know, there's violence and cruelty of one kind or another in literally every single Dickens novel, since the human capacity to mete out those things is a major theme of his. So I don't know why I should shy away from the guillotine/denouncement genre of same. Then I think I would have read every Dickens novel I had not already read at least once in my adult life. I could then, I suppose, go back and read things I've only read once, like Little Dorrit.
I've also resumed reading Adam Nicolson's The Making of Poetry, which continues to be so beautiful and to make me want to spend my own year in Somerset.
Meanwhile, it's an overcast day, originally with rain in the forecast, but I think not so much now. The high is supposed to be 80F, completely pleasant. This is the time of year when I think that the weather could just stick. Let's not really get any hotter than this, I implore it. Or colder. Let's just stay right here. Of course, being only weather, it has no capacity for hearing me and just goes on doing what it does. But this is an awfully nice time of year, even when the sun isn't shining.
Today's agenda:
*walk the dog
*read whatever is available in the magazine slushpile
*do my own writing, maybe, for a change
*write a Sun essay
*strip sheets from beds and change them (a hated task, but it must be done)
*laundry, now that I have my laundry room back (still sharing it with wrens)
*write some emails
Wearing today:
Naturals but, for a change, nothing woolly (except the Allbirds bralette I'm wearing, not shown). Here's my secondhand Pact organic-cotton dress, retrieved from the outbox and restored to active duty, with my secondhand Chicos linen button shirt as a top layer/blue note. I love this grapey purple with just about any blue --- here the very soft, pale blue of the shirt is truly the chef's kiss, in my view. Since the weather isn't either too hot or too cold, it's a good day for cotton. This dress fabric is very soft and cushy, a delight to wear.
I tried this look with a belt as well, which I think was good, but since I'm just home and walking the dog, I took it off again.
If I were making some more public appearance, I think the waist accent would be nice, but as I'm not . . . comfort wins. And honestly, I think the look just as it comes is fine. I could also tie up the shirt, but when I did that it felt bulky, so I've let it hang jacket-style. This way feels easy and breezy and like a lady in an art gallery-garden center kind of place, which is an aesthetic I like to go for, especially in summer.
I am really glad I reclaimed this dress. It cycles back into my rotation happily and usefully: a shape I don't otherwise have, a color I don't otherwise have, in a fabric I honestly like to wear.
My trusty Birk Balis add a nice note of contrast to my lowest hem, but if it starts to rain, I will put on more water-impervious shoes. At the moment, however, my whole outfit today is thrifted: dress, shirt, shoes. Even the Allbirds bralette came from Poshmark. So there is that --- a whole recycling theme to begin the week.
Looking back over winter photos from the last couple of years, I think one item I will put on my acquisitions list for the fall --- secondhand --- is some kind of cropped wool pullover, possibly in a heavy Aran knit. I think I would wear the living daylights out of the right pullover, with the right proportions, over all my dresses, and that this might well obviate any desire for another long-sleeved dress. I think I'm down to just that blue ragg cotton sweater, which I love --- it's soft, the color is beautiful, and it's not un-warm, though it's obviously not as warm as wool. (eta: no, I'm wrong, I still have
this ramie-cotton pullover, but it's very light, not really a layer for warmth). So I could do with another one, and I definitely want something in a cropped length, to work with all my dresses without needing to be bunched with a hair tie. Thinking ahead here . . . though I do look in on Poshmark periodically, and that's one thing I could search for now and maybe find a better deal on, since it's summer.
Last year I was looking intensively for cardigans, but truly, at this writing, I have ENOUGH cardigans. Maybe even more than enough, though I do wear them all the time in all but the hottest weather. It occurs to me, though, that in the coldest weather we get, a pullover sweater is such a comfort, making any outfit warmer. So I think that that will be my focus for the next round of buying, though I also think I could very well hold off for a good long time on any such pursuit. I am incredibly effectively set up for the summer.
This is a good thing, because among other things, I always struggle a lot more with depression and anxiety in the summer, for reasons that are beyond me. Having good clothes that I look forward to getting up and wearing is a mental-health support in a season I always want to love, but actually find quite difficult emotionally. Again, I don't know why this is, but it is, and has been for a good two decades. It may be that I never know why. What matters is that regardless of the reason, I have some ways to address the reality, to make it better and easier on myself. Clothing is not trivial. It does make a difference.
And it's making me feel pretty good today. For that I'm grateful.
LATER (work break):
One thing that occurs to me, as I scroll back through
last year's style album, is how incredibly much happier I am with my wardrobe now, and the way I look in it, than I am with what I see from even as recently as a year ago. And it's not that I've lost weight or improved my bodily appearance in any way. It's genuinely that I've been able to move out stop-gap clothing items, replacing them with well-chosen clothes that fit, are high-quality, and look good in a variety of combinations --- and by this long process of trial and error, figured out what does actually look and feel better.
In this year's album so far, there are, inevitably, a few "that was nice once, maybe" experiments.
But not that many. A few outfits are kind of
meh. But not that many. Yes, maybe my wearing of hiking boots with dresses is weird and not fashionable, but you know, I like it still, and it certainly worked for me in cold, wet weather when I wanted to be outdoors with the dog.
All in all, I like what I have, and I like how I wear it. And this is not trivial. Clothing is not trivial. It does make a difference. That it is making a positive difference in my life is a thing for which, again, I am grateful.
