In golden light yesterday afternoon, one of my Mary figures who . . . needs dusting, like pretty much everything else in my house.
This kitchen window, seen as a whole, was filled with the most marvelous sun. The spring light is something else again. And from a distance, things in my house look clean, including the window itself. My best housekeeping tip: just step back.
Sad news from my New York Sun poetry colleague: his wife of thirty-eight years, who has lived with terminal cancer for the last six years, slipped away yesterday morning. It sounds, really, like the best of all possible deaths: at home, surrounded by the people she loved most, in the sacraments and the fullness of her faith. Still, we do not like to leave the earth we love, and those who love us weep to see us go. If you are so inclined, please pray for the joyful repose of her soul --- her name is Lorena --- and for those for whom her passing leaves a painful void.
In gladder news, my Rome children are on the plane home. They won't get in until late-ish tonight, but we will be overjoyed to see them. It's hard to believe that this semester abroad, which we'd been anticipating since before they left for college and getting everyone's ducks in a row for almost from the moment they arrived as freshmen: they've done it, and it's over. Now they're upperclassmen, turning the corner into the last half of their college years, laying down a path they'll walk all too swiftly from their student lives into adulthood. And then we won't have any more college students, and that's weird.
I'm almost through a copy-editing job, which I hope to finish today, so that I can bang out Sun essays before my MFA student's second-draft fiction thesis lands in my inbox. Tomorrow I need to accompany a child to the doctor, to follow up on a possible asthma diagnosis from Italy --- said child's brother had childhood asthma, which seems largely to have resolved itself as he's grown up, but she was sick literally all semester, and this was the latest thing the doctor there proposed as a possible reason. So before she hops back on the plane to Dallas to see her boyfriend graduate, we've got to hustle her in and talk about it with the doctor here.
Otherwise . . . yesterday I noted that I'd broken down and bought another dress. I'd resolved in my mind some time back that I would buy a new summer dress, and had had my eye on the new Isabelle design, which they've just shown on a model. And --- honestly, it's a pretty dress, in some lovely colors (though I already have a dress in marine blue, which would probably have been my first choice). But wow, seeing it on a human body really changed my perception of what it was going to look like. It is beautiful and, to my eye, very dressy, so much so that I'm not sure I'd reach for it that often if I had it.
BUT ALSO --- and this isn't a complaint about the design, just a personal no-go --- the neckline looks too low for it to be, for me, a useful dress. I already wear a crop top under my Audrey much of the time (though a wash does mean she draws up enough to be okay without it), because while I like graceful scoop and v-necks and don't mind showing my collarbones and upper chest, I really am not comfortable with visible cleavage. I know: men shouldn't talk to my chest regardless of what I'm wearing. No clothing choice should make me less safe, or make me perceive myself to be less safe, than any other clothing choice, because the responsibility for my safety, including from unwanted sexualized gazing, lies with the person whose eyes they are, whose choices and conscious actions.
Still, I know my own comfort zones, especially in public situations where I'm going to be meeting a lot of people I don't really know. And while you might think that being almost 60 --- just one more birthday between me and that lovely round number --- would free you from a lot of these worries, in my case it hasn't. Of course, there is the added layer of being old enough to look possibly a little desperate in a sexy dress, like maybe you're afraid they aren't looking at you enough. I wish I did not have these worries, because they're dumb and unliberating, but you know . . . when I wear the right dress, all the worries go away.
I used to have a dress similar to the Isabelle, actually, which I loved and wore a lot. It was a thrift find, a navy Talbots ponte dress with a low-ish v-neck. When I got it, it had already been heavily worn, and after a year or so with me, it felt stretched and faded and not really nice enough for the places I wanted to wear it as my Nice Dress, so I eventually re-thrifted it. This seems to be the only photo I still have of it --- and I'm wearing a navy crop top under it, because as much as I loved that dress, I wasn't that comfortable in it on its own. The actual neckline was flattering, but felt too revealing, especially for, say, church. So there's a part of me that's been looking for a replacement for that dress, because I loved the fit-and flare vintage-y shape --- it was a little flippier and flare-ier than the Isabelle, I think. I loved the fitted bodice and the fluidity. I would love to have another dress that really works like that dress. But I don't really want another dress that I feel uncomfortable in without some fill-in layer underneath.
I'm also recalling that while I adored wearing that dress on its own, at the height of the summer, it was really hard to layer with cardigans for colder weather. In the photo I linked, I'm wearing it with a boyfriend cardigan, and honestly, looking at that photo now, it's not the best choice. The long cardigan, though it was a light, fluid summer cardigan (which, as another thrifted item, finally fell apart), almost totally obscures the flattering fit of the dress. Maybe I just didn't have enough crop cardigans, but then I still don't have that many. It did look good with my cropped, fitted green blazer, and I wore that a lot as a dressy outfit, but overall it wasn't a great year-round dress. Again, I loved it, but yesterday as I was contemplating a) having been paid for speaking at this conference several weeks ago, and b) upcoming events for which I thought it might be nice to have a new dress, all these thoughts did come to me. If I'm going to make an investment in another dress, I really want to love it just as it is, to be able to wear it year-round with many items in my closet, and most of all, to feel comfortable in it without having to add an extra layer of coverage.
All this to say, again, that I did buy a dress. I had a discount code sitting in my email inbox, thanks to the delay for the Francis skirt I'd pre-ordered way back when, so I splurged on expedited shipping. I guess I'm tired of waiting! I'm still not going to reveal which dress I bought, but hopefully I won't have to keep my secret too long. I will say that it's a dress I've been looking at for a long time, but deciding against for various reasons every time I've gone to order something in the last year: either it wasn't in stock, or it didn't seem like the best cold-weather choice, or I wasn't sure about the fit. That last part is always a gamble, and we shall see, but after studying reviews and looking at pictures, I think I've made a reasonably safe gamble.
Upcoming events for which one more nice dress will be handy:
*Belmont Abbey graduation, which I've never attended before, but my friend Anna-Kate, who is graduating, has invited me to celebrate with her (I'm already celebrating that she got into 6 of the 7 graduate programs she applied to --- a thing she wasn't sure was possible, but she's going to her #1 choice, and this is a triumph).
*A wedding shower for my oldest daughter's best hometown friend, who's getting married in July.
*The wedding itself, on July 1.
*The Summer Literary Series at the University of St. Thomas in mid-July: I'll be attending one keynote lecture, participating in a seminar, and giving a keynote reading, so I will need at least two nice outfits. And yeah, yeah, I could wear the same dress the whole time, but I'm not doing a challenge, so why? It's just as easy to pack multiple dresses as it is to pack multiple accessories to make one dress look different.
*Various Zoom appearances. Here, yeah, it would nice to wear a) a flattering color, with b) no obvious cleavage, since that's the part of me on display.
*Fall and winter teaching, also on Zoom. See above.
Now, it's not that I don't already have a nice rota of dresses that could fill these slots. In packing for the Summer Literary Series, particularly, I will no doubt dip into that rota. But it's pleasant to have a refresh --- not reactively buying something for an event tomorrow, because I thought, oh no, I need a new dress, nothing I have is right, panic panic panic --- but the kind of planned refresh that means that even as older dresses start to show wear (as they inevitably do when you, you know, wear them a lot), newer ones can step forward for all kinds of circumstances. And the kind of planned refresh that gives you more options in terms of length and shape, depending on what a given situation seems to call for.
Meanwhile, I'm kind of rethinking whether I even want this delayed skirt I pre-ordered, but I'll wait until I actually try it on to decide. One course of action might be not to keep the skirt, and also to cull my tops more, because it's easier to wear dresses than to put top/skirt outfits together. I have these merino and cashmere tank tops that I bought on Poshmark, and they're not getting a lot of wear right now, mostly because I've made myself this mental rule that I'm wearing Wool& every day for a year. I could make myself loosen that rule, since it's not really a law of the universe or anything, and just say I'm wearing wool, period, daily, without regard to brand (next year I'm not going to make any rule of the sort, but just wear the natural-fiber clothes I already own, in any combination that I want). Anyway, on the other hand, I did buy that maxi skirt because literally all my tops would go with it, including a pink Eileen Fisher merino tank that I would be loath to get rid of, though it doesn't go well with my other skirts, so my most probable course of action is that I'll just keep it and be satisfied, assuming it fits the way I want it to. Reselling stuff is kind of a pain, though it is the best way, I think, to make sure clothes you no longer want won't end up in a landfill quite so soon. That's another way of saying that once I have it, it's probably best to keep it and wear it.
Yeah, so welcome to Overthinking 101. Procrastination is an art form, and I'm doing a great job at it. But at any rate, I will not be fighting people for the long-awaited Isabelle. Just looking forward to trying something new, to add a little more variety (even though it is another blue dress).
Speaking of blue . . .
Feeling very bright today, to match the weather, which is lovely but still on the cool side. Yesterday I kicked off May with one of the two dresses that had made second place in April, with 5 wears each. It made sense to me to wear the other of those dresses today: my trusty redyed royal-blue Camellia. This is my oldest Wool& dress, my challenge dress from the summer of 2021, and the one I'm most likely to relegate to play-dress status this summer. She's already been hiked in, gardened in, generally-outdoorsed-in --- as well as being my dress for weddings, conference presentations, and other more elevated things. She still looks great and is still as versatile as ever, though not surprisingly, she also shows more subtle signs of wear than any of my other dresses.
Here, because it's coolish and because I'm consciously trying to wear my whole closet, I've paired her with my favorite thrifted linen skirt. While I have been tempted by red dresses, I think this skirt pretty well scratches that itch, at least for the time being. I love the cut, with its A-line flare that turns any top (or any dress) into a fit-and-flare situation. I love the length --- this really is my favorite hemline for a skirt or dress, though I do appreciate having above-the-knee dresses to serve me in my active life. I just love how swirly and fluid it is. I washed this skirt not too long ago, and the fit feels a little tight today, though it could be that I'm just heavier. We have been indulging in all kinds of things since Easter, and I could stand to rein it in a little (and make sure I'm walking 5 miles a day, as in fact Dora and I did do yesterday). Still, I love it, even from various angles, not just the most flattering one.
Camellia does make a good top/slip for a linen skirt. Paired also with this thrifted merino cardigan, which I haven't worn since I had to treat the armpits so aggressively for a lingering BO smell that I'm not at all sure was mine, and which I'll probably take off halfway through my walk today. I like the close cut of the cardigan, though, with the skirt. And my thrifted Birk Balis, to give my battered Floridas a break.
So: blue for Mary, since it's her month, and a comfortable combination for the temperamental weather.
Maybe I should plan to do a little dusting today.
LATER:
Found more shots of that Talbots dress in my Google Photos archive --- boy, oh, boy, is that ever a tour through clothes I don't own anymore, and outfits that should never have happened, on my way to figuring out what I actually like to wear. Holy cow. SO MANY THRIFTED THINGS. So many things I bought because there they were, and they weren't what I really wanted or needed, but they were okay. So many dumb outfits I made with those things, trying to get them to work when they just didn't. I can't tell you how happy I am not to be doing that any more, or how much more confident I feel every day, wearing clothes I know work for me.
Here's that dress with another cardigan I no longer have (synthetic, and I never wore it). Note that here again I'm wearing it with a crop top, which totally obscures the interesting and flattering neckline, which was sadly too low for me to wear with comfort.
No cardigan, but still the crop top. At least you can see the flattering line of the dress, which I really did love.
Here with my periwinkle crocheted cardigan knotted --- I'd forgotten I ever did that.
And here it is with the actual neckline, no crop top --- this was my birthday in 2020, I think. I loved this outfit, but my husband commented admiringly on how the neckline showed a little extra, and . . . not that there was anything wrong with his remarking on that, and certainly not that there was anything wrong with his admiring my body, and not that I want to be that puritanical person, but I did feel instantly self-conscious. I think I bought the crop top the next day. NOT a burqua, mind you. Just something to . . . not show quite so much to the whole world.
Again, this is personal. I stay in my own lane. Self-consciousness is a me problem. I'm not judging or policing what anybody else wears. But when I say I'd love another dress like this, BUT: that's what I mean. I still kind of miss that dress, though by the time I outboxed it, it was well past its sell-by date. I always felt pretty in that dress. It's one of the most flattering dresses I can ever remember owning. But I'd only want another one like that if the neckline wasn't quite so deep.