I have several (maybe four?) thrifted plates in this pattern, some of them given me by the Texasgirl, who found them secondhand and gave them to me for Christmas. This dessert-size plate shown with toast crumbs and a drip of honey.
The Fire Son has gone back to Black Mountain, the husband has returned, and I have only one more day's course prep to do, and details to tie off, before the weekend. It was wonderful to get up and find the coffee made this morning --- even if it is a Friday in Lent and we are supposed to be joining our sufferings to those of Our Lord. We used to opt to suffer without coffee, but we don't do that anymore, because the idea is to keep your suffering to yourself, not inflict it on those around you. I have given up stuff and, here at the end of the halfway week, am feeling the pinch, but it's a pinch I can cope with, which is the thing.
Mortifying the flesh does not mean self-flagellation, only a sustainably tighter limit on what you allow the flesh to do. The key word here is sustainable. It's also good not to use Lent as an excuse to treat yourself punitively, or with hatred --- it may be Lent, but the body and the world it exists in are still good, made by God. Any self-denial we undertake is undertaken with the long view: you really can't separate Lent from Easter, the fast from the feast. The idea is that the feast will taste better because the taste buds have had some time to re-sensitize.
So you choose a way to do that, and that's the focus: not to fill your life with extra burdens and suffering. You accept suffering that comes to you and offer it back to God as part of your prayer and will yourself to look for the grace that accompanies it so mysteriously --- but you don't go looking for suffering, as if you were the one who got to choose your little martyrdom. Even in Lent, you don't look on the Christian life as some kind of sainthood Olympics that you have to win. You just do what you can, accept God's goodness however it offers itself (and maybe make a conscious practice of doing that, so that you can do it when the going gets harder), and carry on with all the all-too-ordinary things.
Fridays in Lent make me have these thoughts. Or, to put my own agency where it belongs: I think these thoughts on Fridays in Lent.
But now it's time to walk the dog and get to work. Here's what I'm wearing today:
I haven't been doing any kind of capsule-wardrobe challenge, but wearing purple daily does mean that I repeat items and combine them in different ways, in a capsule-wardrobe-ish way.
*Wool& Willow dress (M) in Wisteria, bought February 2023, worn once this week already, also masquerading as a top.
*Secondhand Flax linen skirt, bought February 2024 (or maybe January, I can't remember --- early this year, anyway)
*Very old thrifted Express cashmere-silk cardigan
*Snag merino navy tights --- I might take these off later, but I feel chilly right now, and the day overall is cooler and more overcast than yesterday.
*Secondhand Birkenstock Rosemeads
It's a gray day and, again, cooler. I like this grayscale kind of outfit, warm but not wintry: shades of purple, but very muted, grayed purples, with this silvery cardigan. My shoes look positively pink in contrast with the rest, though they're part of the same tonal family.
Default ponytail. I'll wash my hair tomorrow, for the weekend away, which will include Mass somewhere, but I don't know where, for Laetare Sunday.
OK, really, time to get on with things.