Rain outside, coffee brewing inside. I feel compelled to note that those are clean dishes in the drain rack in the sink.
Today's agenda:
*walk the dog if the rain slacks off (or even if it doesn't, but she dislikes being out in the rain)
*write another Sun essay
*work on course materials
*look at my own poems
*editorial meeting
*pub night
*no dyeing of any garment today
It has been hard to photograph those leggings accurately. Green is such a strange color. I don't think any of the photos I've taken so far have actually shown how green they are. They mostly photograph as gray, but they are, in fact, a rather lovely mossy green, a little darker and bluer after a blue dye bath than they had been after a round of sage green. They remain, maybe, still a little browner and muddier than I strictly want, but looking at them, I can see wearing them with at least a selection of my clothes. Not everything --- I think they'd look awful with my Pacific Brooklyn, for example. But they should play nicely with all the blues and purples. I might still put them through another blue dye, in possibly a more intense blue, to tilt the color that way, but NOT TODAY. Today I am tired of the sight of the laundry room.
Meanwhile, I'm contemplating how much I've actually liked those leggings. I've never loved how they looked in outfits, in their original coloring, but I have loved how soft and thick and warm they are. It'll be long years before those knees wear out, or that fabric thins. They've been comforting to wear through two winters so far, and I'll look forward to them this winter, too, in their new darker, more muted presentation.
I fiddled with this photo from yesterday, to try to bring up the color. This is close, at least. They really do look much more green in real life, less taupey-gray. It's kind of a chameleonic shade, and the more I look at it, the more I like it.
Just sent out a poetry submission, a thing I have been trying to do with greater assiduity this summer. Right now I have sixteen poems out in circulation at four different journals. Looking at my spreadsheet, I note that I've had eight poems accepted and/or published (not all of them have appeared yet) in the last year, which is a modest number, but still something. I still have some unpublished entries from my seemingly inexhaustible fund of hermit poems --- surely people are tired of seeing these? I didn't get tired of writing them, but that doesn't mean much. BUT much to my relief and gratification, I've been able to embark on some completely different things, including unrhymed poems in heptameters and hendecasyllabics, which I think read well. We shall see what this host of editors thinks.
Today's high is . . . wow, 73F. Rain all day, and a LOT cooler, like autumnally so.
Wearing:
It's a good day for a dress with sleeves, so out comes Miss Fiona to play, for her first August wear, with Xero Colorado sandals. These aren't my favorites in terms of looks, but they're good for wet weather. They also provide a fairly vivid contrasting frame for my dress. I'll probably change to my Jessie sandals for the pub, since they're also water-shedding but look cuter, and will provide a light contrasting frame instead of a dark one.
Here I continue to demonstrate what I think is the secret to better selfies:
The secret? Don't be afraid to look like an idiot.
Notice that I do this in the privacy of my locked bathroom. I am not that un-self-conscious. Granted, this bathroom makes a pretty good backdrop. It's simple and uncluttered (this end of it --- note that I never include shots of the counter, or indeed any part of the bathroom beyond this little space between the jack-and-jill doors), and my clothes show up well on the creamy background. Besides, this is one of two full-length mirrors in the house.
Anyway, just about anything other than standing squarely in front of the mirror with your feet together will give you a better shot of yourself --- even silly poses where you pretend you're being jubilant about something, or else doing stretches. Or being a pick-me girl, I don't know. The point is: nobody is watching me do these dumb things, so I feel a little freer to do them. Once I have done them, I don't mind sharing them, but I do have to get them done.
I really don't swish around in public like this. But behind locked doors? Yeah, why not? Who's going to stop me?
It seems so dumb, but playing with your hair makes a difference. I guess it looks flirty or something? I don't know. Mostly it gives your arms and hands something to do, so they're not just hanging at your sides, encouraging you to slump. And I do actually play with my hair a lot in real life, as a nervous habit, so this isn't so very far off from my unconscious self-presentation.
Or, because these dresses have pockets . . . I stand with my hands in my pockets a lot, so this is a pretty natural pose. Anyway, that's another take on the idea that giving your hands something to do is one key to better photos of yourself. So is doing something kinetic with your body, rather than the static straight-on confronting-the-frame pose. Here I am mostly facing the mirror, so you can see how my dress hangs from the front, but I've shifted my weight to one side and kind of swiveled my body, in an approximation of the contrapposto arrangement of the human figure embraced by Renaissance artists. We just look better and more interesting in some asymmetrical composition than we do when we present ourselves as a two-dimensional square. In fact, to one degree or another, this is what I'm doing in every photo of myself shown here. Something about my body is off-kilter, breaking the two-dimensional plane: one foot is in front of the rest of my body, or my body is turned, or my weight is shifted. I'm not enough of a theorist to explain why this kind of thing makes us look better in photos, but it does.
So, there you go. Yesterday I was obsessed with posture (and dyeing). Today I'm obsessed with arranging the body in asymmetrical, plane-breaking, perspective-creating ways. And I guess I think about this because so many people hate being in photos, and doubly hate taking photos of themselves --- which I understand. Selfies feel particularly obnoxious, like really, you're that vain? So your whole stance in a selfie says, "I'm embarrased to be doing this," the knock-on effect of which is that you reinforce your sense of shame and embarrassment by appearing at your worst, instead of your best. You think, "See? Why should I be taking pictures of myself? All I do is remind myself what a schlump I am."
But you don't have to. Yes, it's useful when photos reveal things that aren't working, but only when you've done your best to present those things (i.e., the clothes on your body, and you in them) in the best possible light. This is hard for most people. It might be particularly hard for those of us who desire virtue, and seek to cultivate it, and to root out vice --- because humility is a virtue, and vanity is a vice. Isn't it more humble to be invisible to ourselves? Isn't it vanity to be so self-involved that we take photos in the mirror every day?
Well, if you've been reading here any time at all, you know already what my answer is. My answer is that vanity is really self-loathing, not self-adoration (that would be narcissism, which is not only a vice but a clinical disorder of the personality). For most of us, vices are largely the things that keep us imprisoned, whether it's our disordered relationship with food, or money, or sex, or whatever. They're things that make us miserable, because something is awry somewhere in our mind and soul. What I think vanity really is, for most of us, is that imprisoning self-consciousness that keeps us anxious and miserable and insecure, looking in the mirror a thousand times before we leave the house and still feeling out of joint. When I think of vanity, I think of a particular anxiety dream I used to have, but blessedly haven't in a long time. I do still have anxiety dreams, but not this one. In it, I have to be somewhere and am confronted with a huge closet full of clothes, none of which is the right thing. Time ticks away, and I'm late, while I compulsively put on and tear off clothes, in a pile that mounts higher and higher while the thing I want to be doing goes on without me. That compulsion that won't let me just relax and leave the house? That is vanity. And nothing about it is self-loving.
So I think that, paradoxically, the way to free ourselves from that prison is not to try to make ourselves invisible to ourselves via the mechanism of shame. We don't get more humble by telling ourselves that we don't deserve to look nice or to appear in photographs. We do --- I think --- acquire humility through learning to love and accept ourselves as God does, to be at peace with our body and face as beautiful things that His hand has wrought, and as our soul's home in this life. (Yes, yes, I know that the body is not just a container like a water bottle, that we as beings are integrated, body and soul, but that our body is our soul's home still seems like a thing we can say and think). When we feel good in and about ourselves, we can forget ourselves a little. We don't have to be scrutinizing ourselves constantly to be sure we're okay. We can just let go, and look outward more.
I haven't said it in a while, but that is what I think the point of all this is. It's not to be attached to clothing or appearance in some disordered way --- though if I'm doing more of this and less praying, then I do have a problem. It is, ultimately, to rejoice in ourselves because God rejoices in us, His creatures. Shame is a prison, and it has no place in the Kingdom. Self-consciousness is a prison, and it has no place in the Kingdom. To be able to say to ourselves, "I'm actually fine, I'm actually beautiful, what I have on is actually great," is to let ourselves out the door and into the sunshine, to give ourselves away in whatever way we're called to do on a given day. Or to put it another way, I find it a lot easier to be loving to other people when I don't hate myself.
Anyway: selfies. Less dumb than you might think. That's today's lesson. Meanwhile, it's still raining, but the dog needs to go out, so I guess --- now that I feel all beautiful and radiant and self-giving --- I will go and do that.
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
Completed:
* One wet dog walk.
*One Sun essay.
*One productive, good editorial meeting.
Now I'm wiped out and ready for pub night . . . at 3:45 in the afternoon. But I also haven't played Wordle yet today, so I guess I'll do that.
SOMEWHAT LATER:
Since it's raining again, and Dora and I have already gotten soaked once today, and I'm through with my work and it's not time to go to the pub yet, here's a little fashion show starring my newly-dyed green leggings, just to demonstrate how much better this color is than I had initially feared it might be.
First, with Fiona, since I was already wearing her. I wasn't sure I was going to like this combo, mostly since I'm never sure I like Fiona with leggings at all. But I really think I do like this.
Here's a better look at the color (ooh la la):
They really have dried to a very lovely sagey color. It's green, and the pattern still shows, but the whole effect is muted enough to be a nice neutral.
Next, with Camellia:
I'll always love blues and greens together. I really think the grayed sage and the royal blue play well with each other here.
With Willow:
A nice softer combination, I think. I should really groove on this next spring, when I'm hungering for those tender, fresh colors.
With Sierra:
This is probably my least favorite combination, but it's honestly not awful. I doubt I'll wear these items together much, but I could and it wouldn't be a disaster.
With Maggie T:
Now, this I really like. I think it's the blues-and-greens thing again, but somehow the pop of tealy blue against the soft thyme-y green feels fun.
And Maggie B:
This is fine. It's another iteration of blue and green. I don't know that it sets me absolutely on fire, but I like it and will wear it.
I feel that these leggings integrate far better into the rest of my wardrobe now that they're redyed. Now I like the look of them as much as I like the feel. I think they'll look better with my Tari boots (with socks underneath, leggings over the socks) than they did in their original colors, and they'll also work great with my new Birk "graphite" colored taller boots. And in transitional weather I can wear them for a little more coverage while I still wear sandals on my feet.
In fact, I've put my Fiona back on and am still wearing these leggings, so they might well figure into my night-out look --- since it is raining and gross, and I like leggings with sandals.
AND YES, AS IT TURNS OUT:
Here's the pub-night look. Four of us are going, so I guess it's a family date night? Anyway, these leggings are delightfully not too hot, and they feel comforting in wet weather, even when it's not chilly. A little gel scrunched into the hair, some strappy (but weather-impervious) sandals, and the trusty belt pack, and I'm ready to hit the town. Or at least the neighborhood.