This long day of waiting and preparation, all the earth holding its breath . . . Something strange is happening, indeed, but we don't see it yet. Instead, we go about our business, mundane and desultory, marking time because time is all we have. Eternity will show its face to us, but not right now. Even that we have to wait for.
I'll be marking the time by doing some last-minute shopping --- you really can't buy strawberries until right before you plan to use them. Tomorrow's leg of lamb is defrosting, and in a little while I'll put on Thursday night's chicken carcass for tonight's soup. I'll walk the dog, maybe garden a little, clean house. Almost twelve hours to get through before the striking of the Easter fire, and while there's plenty to do, none of it seems all that important or interesting. It's just stuff to do because I have these twelve-ish hours.
I follow the Litany account on Instagram: a Catholic fashion-design house, for anyone who doesn't know. I follow them even though on many levels I am not their target demographic, which is decidedly young. Their very small line of clothing feels, to me, largely like costuming for some kind of fantasy life, not the lives most of the young women I know are leading right now---but it is beautiful and ethically made. And they often have interesting ideas about dressing liturgically. Sometimes I think they kind of strain after meaning, and it would be easy to overthink everything you put on even more than I already overthink everything I put on, but sometimes they're on the money.
They've run a series all week on, as you might expect, dressing for Holy Week. I mostly didn't pay attention, because I already knew how I was dressing for Holy Week. These are the clothes I have; here's what I can do with them. Red for Good Friday, for example:
I own exactly three items of red clothing, so my choices were blessedly limited. Here I was kinda sorta doing Postulant Chic again, which felt not inappropriate.
But today's idea caught my eye.
I'm not dressing like the young woman in the photo --- though she does look lovely --- because come on. Here in Lincolnton, NC, where people are wearing their pajamas to Walmart, I am not wearing church clothes to buy strawberries and walk my dog. I don't mind being literally the one woman in town wearing a dress on Saturday for no reason, but even I have my limits, and those limits say: Your life is not a drama for which you wear a costume. It's real life, and you are not a character, but a person living that life.
But I liked the idea of wearing gray for this day of waiting. That seems right. It's the one day of the whole liturgical year that just feels completely between seasons. It's a nothing day, until they strike the Easter fire in the holy night. So wearing something that's just kind of . . . nothing, in terms of color . . . seems appropriate.
*Wool& Audrey dress (S) in Black Heather, bought November 2022
*Very old thrifted Gap linen hoodie
*Secondhand Birkenstock Bali sandals
Last night I had to mend my beloved Audrey --- she had sprung a seam and developed a little hole right at the bottom of the right-hand pocket. This really didn't surprise me too much. I have lost at least an inch around my hips in the last few months (watching portion sizes, doing Pilates, and lifting weights, in addition to the walking I already did), and this dress fits much more smoothly now through that area. Before, there was a little pull right at the pockets. I didn't think I could size up, because then the bodice and armholes would have gaped, and it did relax a little with wear, but I put my hands in my pockets a lot, and with the continual stress on that spot, again it's no surprise that a little hole would have developed right on that seam.
Last night I darned it (I am slowly getting more adept at darning) and sewed over the seam that had sprung, and she's good to go. I guess I can measure my favorite dresses in terms of the amount of mending I have to do. I must truly adore my Aegean Teal Maggie, because that dress is starting to be held together with my own sewing-kit thread. Anyway, here's Audrey back on the beat.
This gray linen hoodie is another item I sort of remember buying at Goodwill, but I have no idea when that was. I don't wear it that often--- it's a piece with limited utility. It's too light to wear for warmth, but then it's too much when the weather is really hot. The boxy shape is a little hard to work with. BUT sometimes it is exactly what I want to wear, and so I have held onto it all these years. Actually, I think it will be nice with my linen skirts this spring, but I like it best of all with this long dark-gray dress. The dress's long, slim line offsets the top's boxiness in a way that the top really needs.
And finally, finally, my Birk Bali sandals are back! I've put off wearing sandals all through Lent, even on days when the weather was really warm, because I didn't want to rush the season. I love these shoes so much. I wore them all through Norway last summer, and everywhere else I went. The leather straps have given some, and I really need to poke some more holes to tighten them up, but I'm glad to have them on my feet. Admittedly, one of my plans for Easter Monday is to purchase another pair of Birks, probably some Mayaris, off Poshmark, because my old Birki Floridas are basically in ruins, and I want a pair that I can just kick on and off quickly (for going through airport security lines, among other things). But I love these and will continue to wear them until they fall apart, and then repair them and wear them some more.
So, here I am, ready for my day of not-much-happening-that's-apparent-to-the-naked-eye. Later I'll bathe, wash my hair, and change for the Vigil, but that's not for hours and hours. Stay tuned.
LATER:
I've walked the dog, been to the store, and made tomorrow's dessert, from the original Moosewood Cookbook, one of my most-beloved and most-used wedding gifts over all these years:
I wound up adding an extra package of cream cheese (I used Neufchatel, which is what we eat, anyway, for the slight reduction in calories), to make enough filling to fill my pie plate.
Here's how it looked, about to go into the fridge to chill:
Tomorrow, once it's chilled and firmed, I'll cover the top with sliced strawberries. I tasted the filling, and it is indeed delicious: a less-sugary cheesecake, basically, with a little yogurt tang. It would be good the way they suggest, with a sprinkling of graham-cracker crumbs and nutmeg on top, but for a springtime dinner, and with fruit, I thought it would be better plain, with the crust only on the bottom.
This is a delightfully easy dessert to make, especially if you have happened to buy, at some point in the recent past, a bottle of Great Value organic grated orange peel at Walmart, for some reason that you have now forgotten, and can pull it out and shake it into the pie filling instead of lamenting that you forgot to buy an orange to grate. The recipe is extra-super easy when you have that on hand. I don't know why, in all these years, I've never made this pie before. I've made their mascarpone cake a number of times, their cheesecake at least once (it's a more fiddly recipe than others I have since discovered, so I haven't done it often). The Moosewood Cookbook dessert section is small but quite nice, if you like simple, not-too-sweet, mostly-light desserts (on the other hand, they do have fudge brownies). But somehow I had managed to overlook, until today, this yogurt-cream cheese pie. No more! From henceforth, it will be a go-to.
Everything else will be cooked tomorrow:
*leg of lamb with garlic, oregano, and lemon
*prosciutto-wrapped roasted asparagus
*roast potatoes
*green salad with yellow tomatoes, diced egg, and feta
I have some sweeties for my sweetie for the breakfast table tomorrow --- breakfast will otherwise be light and ordinary (yogurt, Ezekiel English muffins with honey, etc, and PLENTY OF COFFEE).
Chicken soup is cooking for tonight. The Easter Vigil starts at 9, so I imagine we'll eat around 6:30, to be out of the house by 8. More to come, maybe.
STILL LATER:
Our Holy Saturday dinner table, plus a preview of the Easter table, since I've set it already (the nice thing about having both a kitchen table and a whole dining room):
Still feeling the plainness and sepia tones of the day here, and glad I have some stark white dishes. I haven't used white china much in a long time, but I'm glad I have it.
And the dining room, featuring a little tablecloth cousins of mine who were missionaries in China brought back, easily thirty-five years ago, if not more. I'm fairly sure I've had this cloth since before I was married. It's so small that I haven't used it much at all, but as I was rummaging in the nice-tablecloth drawer, it surfaced, and I thought, hm.
I hope that even if I were by myself, I would bother to get out the pretty things. Certainly I bother to do it for two of us --- my husband very sweetly thanked me this afternoon for making holidays beautiful, and I said it was my pleasure, which was the truth. It is a pleasure to set a lovely table, then to sit down and eat a lovely meal at that table. I've acquired so many pretty things over the years that I don't use everyday: that little sauce boat in the foreground, for example, is a gift from my husband for some occasion so many years ago I don't remember when he gave it to me. It was there in the cupboard, and I thought, well, the mint sauce has to go in something. The blue glass salad bowl just visible at the far end is another more recent gift from the same giver.
Then there are my grandmother's things:
And my own wedding china:
And the napkins are one-dollar cotton bandanas from Walmart, just so we keep it really classy. I couldn't resist the very pale green for springtime.
So I've spread a feast for two, which really, after all these years, is a treat*. I thought I'd be sad: big table, empty chairs. But I'm truly not. I married a person with whom I can have a good time, and that's the standing plan.
*I mean: we've had Easter by ourselves for the last two years. Not that I don't miss the kids, because Easters with everyone were always beautiful, but this has been more than fine. I really like being with my husband. He really likes being with me. This is nice, and fun, and after all the church, it's a refreshment just to sit down together and do whatever we want, however we want. Basically a feast day is an excuse for a date at home, where we feed and take care of each other in various ways. (I'm not really ready for Christmas to be like this, mind you, but I can visualize it as totally okay).
AND FINALLY . . .
Here's what I'm wearing tonight. Already celebrating Not Wearing Purple.
I've fasted for the whole season from this dress --- which is a laughably minor fast, which is why I even say it. But I sure am glad to put it on. It's still relatively new to me, bought at the end of December or beginning of January, secondhand: the Not Perfect Linen Leila dress (which I think they don't make any more?) in Cinnamon Rose, with my favorite secondhand cobalt-blue merino cardigan, because once the sun goes down it'll be a little cool. And Birk Papillios for a little (literal) lift.
Litany says "to invite tones of rose and white into your style," so that's what I've done. Rose dress, white earrings.
About to leave for the Vigil. Wishing all two of you, or however many people read this blog, every hope and joy that the Resurrection promises you.