An icon on our dining-room wall. I realize that I have more than 31 Marian images or figures in my house, because . . . there are a lot I haven't posted in this month of Mary.
Like this little vintage statue my husband gave me years ago:
The little girly is safely home from her travels! Her brother comes home Saturday, I think --- which is also my mother's birthday, which means I'd better get something in the mail pronto, like today. Anyway, it's good to look forward to people's comings. The oldest girly and her husband will be here at the end of June for a wedding, and there seems to be a boyfriend visit on the horizon for late July. Other friends also welcome to come and go, to and from this house. It's been awfully quiet around here, and I'm looking forward to the vacation.
Three-hour Sun poetry meeting yesterday, though it involved as much just talking as it did work, and was good. Now to bang out a lot of little essays between now and June 14, to get myself well ahead of the game.
Meanwhile, in packing news, because that's what you're really here for:
*I have aquired a couple of zippered mesh laundry bags --- one fairly large (like 20"x something), one a little smaller. The large one holds all my dresses and all my leggings and tights handily, and lets me press it down pretty flat. The smaller one seems to accommodate enough underwear and bras. I plan to get a few more, at least one of which I might use to hold a sweater and pashmina in my purse, which would free up a tiny bit more room in the pack. I think if I do this I should be able to get my coat in the pack, which would be nice. Otherwise maybe I can fit it in a zipper bag in my purse.
*The two zippered bags, filled, fit nicely in my daypack inside my bigger pack, with room to spare. This is especially true if I wear my hiking boots instead of packing them, which I think after all I'm just going to have to do. It'll be a pain taking them off and putting them back on in security, but things will pack so much better if they travel on my feet.
*I plan to use one zippered bag as a dirty-clothes collector. Otherwise, it's really nice to have things organized in my bag so that a) they pack efficiently, and b) I don't have to root through the whole pack to find something. I'm going to pack this way always from now on, no matter what I'm packing for. Ditto for my purse. I hate having my purse be full of stuff, but impossible to find things in. This might be a thing I start doing all the time, another easy little life-changing ADHD hack for myself. My current purse doesn't have that many good pockets, and I already enjoy having my belt pack in it as an organizer, when I'm not just wearing it instead of carrying a purse. Why not many organizers?
Despite my rejoicing in yesterday's sunshine, it was brief. We had more rain in the afternoon and last night. When I went out with Dora, late, in a drizzle, we didn't walk very far because there was a skunk rummaging around in the wet grass by the parking lot at the corner, and Dora Wanted It. I've seen her levitate at the end of the leash over squirrels and groundhogs, but this was a whole other level. I had to drag her (I'd say bodily, but how else do you drag something that has a body?) back down the street, away from it. No way could we have walked past it and not gotten sprayed. It was raising its tail in warning at us as it was. Disaster averted, say I. Dora kept looking back over her shoulder with bloodthirsty longing, and muttering that I had ruined her whole night.
Things to do today:
*walk the dog
*write some business emails
*start Sun essays
*print out and mail the firefighter son's jury-summons form and the copy of his driver's license, so that that will be done
I've already done some small revisions on the new trenta-sei I started this week. The ending's not right, and I guess I have to wait for it to clarify (and experiment with new rhyming couplets, instead of being locked into the sounds I've landed on for now), but I have been able to tweak the body of the poem into more pleasing patterns in the meantime.
AND it's the end of the month! June is almost upon us: the month of the Sacred Heart. I'm not going to wear red all month to celebrate . . . in fact, the greatest statistical likelihood is that I'll get up tomorrow and put on something blue. Otherwise, I'm not going to do anything this month but pray, work, write, and go to Norway.
What I'm wearing today, presented here as a series of stages of assembly:
The base: Maggie B, joining the 4-wears-in-May club (the other members are Camellia and Maggie T), plus thrifted Birk Floridas, because that's what I stepped into when I got up. If I were really trying, as in if I were going somewhere, I'd wear my gray Xero Jessie sandals for contrast with my lowest hem. As I'm not going anywhere but out to walk the dog, eventually, this is fine.
Addition:
The tan cork belt I was wearing yesterday. I do like this dress unbelted, but I think a belt adds a lot of --- not needed, but certainly sometimes appreciated --- definition.
Finally, it's still coolish this morning, and I wanted to add some lighter color and pattern to my outfit, without fussiness or a feeling of overdoing it. The trick, always, is to feel good but not overdressed for a day of sitting at the kitchen table.
This old, thrifted crocheted cotton cardigan (Pierre Cardin, no less!) is a favorite summer layer of mine. It adds interest and some coverage, but not really any weight or heat. The light periwinkle is a dreamy color. It adds a nice vertical line, too, being drapey, not boxy, even though it hits at what could be a less-flattering spot on my body.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the Maggie dress is a real darkhorse favorite for me. The photos on the Wool& website really didn't entice me at all (I see a pattern: me thinking, eh, I don't like that much >> me thinking, wait, this is actually my favorite dress of all time). This is the only dress design I have two of, and I do not regret having two. It's a versatile dress, summer and winter. It's the dress I've dressed up for readings and dressed down for hanging around. I've worn it to parties. I've worn it to church. I've worn it with skirts and cardigans and blazers, and all on its own. I haven't actually slept in mine yet, but it would be a great nightgown. And for $128 --- which admittedly isn't cheap, like "Walmart Clearance Cheap" --- it's possibly the sleeper best buy from this company.
So that's my ongoing review. While I'm truly hard-pressed to pick an absolute favorite dress, this model --- of which, again, I have two, in blue and teal --- turns up again and again as a hard-working front-runner. In my wardrobe, it does in an exemplary way what I want my wardrobe to do.
And in clothes like this, my ordinary, aging, non-model body ceases to be quite so aware of itself as an ordinary aging, non-model body. It finds that it doesn't have to think about itself all that much (except to write paragraphs like this, about not thinking about itself). And the point is not
that the dress is "shapeless" or "sacklike," a thing to hide in. Yes, it's an unstructured design, but it's an unstructured design with graceful lines that are meant to move with the body, not swamp it. You're not calling attention to your body, in either positive or negative ways, but you're also not camouflaging it as if it were a thing to be ashamed of. You're just . . . dressing it.
And you're dressing it in such a way that your appearance can cease to be a worry for you --- which last thing, again, is what I think vanity really is. It's not being stuck on yourself because you love yourself to the point of idolatry. It's not serving yourself because you think you're some kind of god. It's being stuck on yourself because you hate yourself, or you feel insecure in yourself, or you feel out of sync with your surroundings and situation, maybe because of either of those other things, or at least in conjunction with them. And I guess that, too, can be an idol, if it means that your thoughts can't let go. At any rate, it's a prison. But it's a prison you can walk away from, free --- by God's grace, yes, but you can cooperate with that grace by making some choices. It sounds kind of stupid, put this way, but your actual wardrobe can be a gesture of cooperation with that grace. It can be, in cooperation with grace, an instrument of your greater peace of mind. And that is a freedom.
The hell, too, with what anybody else thinks about what you're wearing. The absolute hell with that thief of your peace and joy.
Now that I've got that off my chest, I have things to do.
LATER (having done some of those things and more):
Here's a portrait rendering of me feeling that these allergies might actually be a cold.
BUT ALSO:
The girly brought me some earrings, of a kind I don't usually wear, but I like them. She said, "They're round like your glasses!" Which --- yes, they are. They're also mother-of-pearl, which is cool. They make a nice pop with my dark dress.