Honeycrisp apples in a blue glass bowl on the kitchen table. My husband gave me this bowl for some gift-giving occasion last year, and I love it --- he knows my colors. And as much as I adore handmade pottery (especially as I have my own hand-making potter in the family), the graceful lines and clarity of this glass piece make me very happy. He never tells me where he gets these things --- there are antique and secondhand shops he knows about but I don't. I ask, and he says, "The Gettin' Place," and I want to stick a fork in him, even as I am grateful that he is the kind of person he is, and grateful for the thing he has thought to choose for me, because marriage is like that, but anyway.
Today: it's cloudy and damp again, with a high of 58F. This, according to my friend Jane in Bismarck, North Dakota, is flipflop weather. But what I say is: so many things in this life are relative, and weather is one of them. To me, 58F is cozy layering weather. From here it mostly only gets hotter, so you seize whatever opportunities come your way. Remind me of this, by the way, in March or April, when I will probably think that 58F is at least bare-ankles weather, if not actually sandal weather. Weather is largely the weather of desire. In November, what I desire is to wear sweaters and not die of heat stroke, so.
Today, of course, is Day 30 of my dress challenge. I guess I could come up with things to say about how life-changing it's been, but honestly . . . it hasn't been all that life-changing. The 100-day was life-changing --- this challenge, on the other hand, was mostly easier than I'd thought it would be. It saved me some decisions on a daily basis, but beyond that . . . eh. I mean, I think I already knew that if I had to, I could get by with just one dress. But I'm glad I don't have to get by with just one dress. As easy as this last month has been, I am low-key wild with excitement to wear something else tomorrow. I suppose in a way wearing the same dress for a month has instituted a refresh of my whole wardrobe, because suddenly everything else feels new, fresh, and interesting. That's a nice shot in the arm in the fall, I'll admit.
But overall: it's a not-unpleasant exercise in minimalism, a thing I never once for one minute aspired to. That hasn't changed. Yes, I can wear one dress for a month, or three and a half, but that's not how I want to live. Of course, if you've been reading here for any time at all, you know this about me. You also know, I hope, that if minimalism is something you aspire to, that's fine --- although I do not at all believe that there's anything intrinsically virtuous about being minimalist. It's on the level of having a living-room couch. Some people have one, some don't. There's no moral value attached to your choice to have or not have something which is in itself morally neutral (as most material possessions in fact are). Practical value, yes. Having a couch means that more people have a place to sit, or that you have a place for a nap on Sunday afternoon, or whatever. Not having a couch might mean your living room is small and comfy chairs work better for you. But these decisions aren't really keys to a better, more virtuous life. A more comfortable life, maybe --- which strikes me as a thing some people find morally suspect. If you're too comfortable, look out. This is what some people appear to believe, and I'm not sure it's a constructive belief.
OF COURSE, having stuff can make you uncomfortable on a practical level: your house is cluttered, you can't find things, you're overwhelmed by the choices in your closet. But none of that makes you a bad person. None of that makes your life a bad life, just maybe a life that's more difficult for you than it has to be. In that case, the challenge is not to adopt a lifestyle with an aspirational virtue-signaling label, but to ask yourself: what do I need to do to make my existing life more functional?
This is a question which, among other things, imputes no shame to you. Shaming yourself achieves nothing. I hear people confess to wanting to be minimalist but failing at it because they like more things (by which I mean material possessions) than they think they should. They feel guilty, and there's nothing really to do about that except to try to have more willpower (read: convince themselves that they don't like all the things they like), and then to berate themselves for not having willpower, which brings to mind the Arnold Lobel story about Frog and Toad and the cookies . . .
Now, detachment is a thing to cultivate in the spiritual life, for sure. It is desirable to occupy a state of mind in which your house could burn down, and while you might mourn some for the possessions you have lost (especially, say, photographs of your children and things they have made for you, and maybe the one existing hard copy of the 900-page novel manuscript, your magnus opus, which you're a page away from finishing*), you know that this catastrophe would not destroy you. You know that while you might naturally grieve, your life will go on. You don't really need those things to survive and be happy, because your hope and trust and love reside elsewhere. This, I think, is a habit of mind to work on, because really what you desire is to grow in hope, trust, and love of God, who holds all creation together in himself and will not let a thing that matters be truly lost. But this habit of mind does not entail getting rid of the things you value --- for whatever reason, because you don't need to justify your reasons for valuing the things you do --- simply because you're afraid you value them too much and would be too sad if your house burned down.
That's what all those stylish minimal interiors say to me: if this house burned to the ground right now, there's nothing in it that anyone would miss. This space holds nothing irreplaceable. I mean, I get home staging, for example. I get why Air BnB interiors look the way they do. I actively appreciate the minimalism of a good Air Bnb interior --- and why? Because it says, Nobody lives here. You aren't occupying someone else's space. The least comfortable Air Bnb we stayed in in Norway was a little too much like somebody's Oma's house. In fact, I think the host was an Oma (or, since it was Norway, not Germany, a Mormor). Her personality was everywhere (so was the smell of her cat's litter box, even though she'd taken it away, maybe half an hour before we drove up). We felt a little uneasy in that space because it was so clearly somebody's, and we were trespassers. There is value, of a mostly psychological sort, in the anonymous space. You sell your house faster because to other people it says, This is nobody's house. Why shouldn't it be yours?
But why you'd want your own everyday life to feel that way is beyond me. A place for everything, and everything in its place is a good rule for orderly living, a functional home. But A place for nothing and nothing in any place is just . . . taking the idea that this world is not our home to an extreme that seems even weirder to me when practiced by people who don't actually believe that we have any other home. If you're a materialist, i.e., a person who believes that matter is all there is, then why not surround yourself with a lot of matter while you've got the chance? Why feel guilty about the fact that matter matters to you?
Mind you, again, my intent is never to judge or shame people for beliefs they hold. Shame, particularly, is both pernicious in itself and useless as a tool for achieving some outcome. Interrogate, yes --- because I think the questions are interesting and maybe important to ask. I hope people interrogate themselves before advancing on a course of action tied to a belief. But you know, if you honestly want to live that lightly in your house, with nothing you'd miss if it burned down, then that's what you ought to do.
Anyway. Time to get dressed.
For Day 30, here's the basic outfit: Teal Willow, with thrifted green merino-blend pullover, thrifted Allbirds merino-blend leggings, Darn Tough Socks (not seen), and Tari boots from yesterday, because I don't mind wearing them in the rain.
But since it is Day 30, I bothered to take some outdoor selfies to celebrate.
It is raining --- lightly, but definitely. I went out with Dora for a minute without a coat, because it's not that cold, but then went in and grabbed my secondhand L.L. Bean rain shell. I'd bought it for and taken it to Norway, where I hardly had occasion to wear it. But here, in the drear of the year: yes, I'm glad I bought it. With some warm layers under, it's just right for a day like today.
I do rather like this whole look. And overall, it's been a good 30 days. Tonight I'll give Willow a bath and lay her on the rack to dry --- and enjoy choosing another dress for tomorrow.
But you know, if the house burned down right now (and I pray that it does not), and I escaped with just these clothes on my back, I'd be okay.
*I'm reminded here of John Neville Figgis , I think it was, whose actual magnum opus went down in a shipwreck, a catastrophe from which he never fully recovered. Every time I think I might like to live in a world without internet technology, I remember John Neville Figgis and give thanks for what I have.