Somebody's new toy --- bought for herself, not a Christmas gift --- came last night, so we were treated to a little noodling around after dinner. We'd walked out, all eight of us --- the Fire Son having turned up in the afternoon --- to the wine bar on Main Street, where my husband and I had had dinner last Thursday night. It was a fun night out, with a lot of laughter. Then we came back and sat about the living room while the Artgirl played random riffs on this guitar. After that, all the next generation sat up watching MST3K (Quest of the Delta Knights, I believe, which I had seen already, multiple times), but the husband and I turned it in.
Today I need to:
*do another round of grocery shopping
*make sure I've got what I need for stockings
*plot out meals more clearly in my mind, so that they happen over the weekend
and also walk the dog.
It's lovely to have everybody here together, laughing and talking. But it's also lovely to have quiet time alone in the kitchen in the morning.
In the mail yesterday I received a copy of Dominicana, the journal of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC, with a really lovely, theologically penetrating review of Works of Mercy, by Br. Augustine Mary Buckner, O.P.
I mean, okay, I'm going to appreciate a review which includes the phrase, "In Thomas's most brilliant literary moment." I just am. But I also appreciate that he gets at what I think is the heart of the novel, in ways that I'm not sure I could have articulated so clearly. This was a nice little pre-Christmas gift.
Also, one of the girls --- I forget which one now --- took photos of Dora and me sitting together in our chair at the kitchen table yesterday:
Oh --- a first last night. Dora and I were walking, just before 10 p.m., down to the Park Loop dead end, where the houses back up to woods and creek, when a deer came running up through the big property where the street gives out, and across the yard next to it, and into the woods beyond. I have seen deer in town before now, but never down that way (though I've always figured they must be there). It was one of those quick, strange moments --- like seeing a falling star, which the husband and I did while out walking on Monday. I'd forgotten all about the Geminids, but there one was, defying the light pollution: big and bright and fast and gone.
I think I might make a couple of big pizzas for dinner tonight. That would be fairly easy and feed a lot of folk.
And I really need to call my mother. Been telling myself that all week.
Wearing today:
*Wool& Willow dress (medium long) in Ocean Teal
*Secondhand Aran Crafts charcoal-gray zip cardigan
*Secondhand J.Jill purple cashmere scarf
*Snag Tights, originally Sand Dollar, redyed with Jacquard Sapphire acid dye
*Secondhand Birkenstock Rosemead clogs
It's dry and not so cold today, so I thought I'd take a boots break. I love these purple Rosemeads, adding another Advent touch without matching my scarf. And my Willow dress is always so soft and comfortable and easy to wear. These teals always send me, too.
This is another outfit that feels comfortable on a level beyond the physical, too --- that ease of feeling that who you are and how you look are integrated, not at odds with each other. I guess that's another way of saying that this, again, is very much my personal style: to feel put together in a low-key, easy way, with soft fabrics but not a lot of flutter, and in colors that have some saturation and intensity without being bright. Also: shapes that feel like the Hanna Anderssen dresses my daughters wore as little girls. Mary Jane shoes. Vaguely reminiscent of hobbits, but not too overtly hobbity. Cheerful in a quiet way, but not poisonously upbeat.
Yes, yes, it's just clothes, but come on. Given that we have these choices --- and we all know what a privilege it is to have choices, so no need to belabor that --- these are the kinds of choices it makes sense to make. Wear stuff that makes you feel like you, not like a persona in a costume. Granted, some people feel most like themselves while costumed as personae. There are medieval LARPers not too many miles from here who feel that way. I guess the point is to know yourself and dress that self, whatever it seems to require. And I guess that's important right now because the season for many of us is busy and a little overwhelming and stressful, and we need some locus of calm. The easiest and most portable locus of that calm is our own body, inhabited by our mind and spirit, all of which want to feel integrated with each other, soothed, not grated upon. As I cast my eye on the shopping list here on the table before me, and I contemplate going out to yet another supermarket (because leeks, of all things, have turned out to be hard to find in this town), I consider that locus of calm which I want to carry with me out into the day, and I'm kind of glad I dressed it to maximize its benefits.
EVENING UPDATE:
I have
*grocery shopped
*made pizza dough, then pizza
*made more brioche dough for bread pudding
*made more yogurt and creme fraiche for various purposes
*walked the dog multiple times
*called my mother only to discover that she and my brother were on the road today, instead of tomorrow when I was expecting them, but it's all good
*laughed a lot with the kids over dinner
*walked the dog again and seen the beautiful winter stars