Peony report for the fifth week of Easter.
Also, here's a shot of my office mantelpiece last night, just because I thought it looked nice in the lamplight:
The usual this week: essays to write, an acquaintance's poetry manuscript to finish reading and making notes on, another friend's play to read and make notes on because she says she's stuck, plus gardening, maybe a little baking with gooseberries . . . who knows what might happen? All that and dog-walking, too. Oh, and Emily Dickinson and Charles Darwin, always.
Wearing today, in a continuing bid to wear everything in my closet:
*Secondhand Flax linen tunic, bought April 2024
*Secondhand Flax linen skirt, bought February 2024
*Secondhand Birk Mayaris, bought April 2024
I'm not in love with the proportions of this outfit, but it is comfortable and cool. And in fact, it does work in terms of the Rule of Thirds, though my aesthetic, if you can even call it that, is hardly the aesthetic of the blogger I've linked here. The overall shape of this outfit is maybe a little too triangular --- the tunic top would really look better over a longer, straighter skirt. And it's top-heavy. But it still conforms to the 2/3:1/3 principle.
But then again, I like the washed navy with this soft purple skirt, which I haven't worn since the end of Lent, so it was really due for an outing. And I dunno. Yes, having a higher waistline, rather than no waistline and a dramatically dropped top hemline, would probably make me look taller, etc. But this is comfortable, without being the big-boxy-tee kind of comfortable that really doesn't flatter anybody. As long as you don't have a top hemline cutting you right in half, and as long as your silhouette isn't a big wide square with no curve through the body (the typical men's-tee shape, in fact, which again is not made to flatter the female form, and therefore does not flatter the female form), then I think you can probably get away with it. And this feels very skimming and easy, but one standard deviation more polished than a big button shirt would be.
I at least intend to get away with it today. I mean, really, who cares about rules, except that they can offer a useful kind of paradigm to play with --- it's not bad to be intentional about the shape your clothes make, for example, when you're thinking about how to please your own eye. Knowing some basic principles gives you some mastery over how things turn out, so that getting dressed isn't a total crap shoot (and then you show up somewhere and hate how you look, which has happened to me more times than not in the course of my life). When you know something about what you're doing --- even if what you know isn't that much, and your eye isn't great --- then you can mean to look the way you look, instead of being ambushed and sabotaged by yourself.
And again, these are two pieces I haven't worn in a while, so it was time to give them a turn in the fresh air. Today's high is 80F, so I'll be glad to have on something cool and light. As much as I love wearing wool year-round, I'm really happy to have some linen in my closet again.
I slept badly last night, so now that I've had a wake-up bath and hair wash (no styling this time, just a quick shampoo and a slick of light leave-in conditioner, combed through), more coffee is in order before I plunge into the day's to-do list.
OH ALSO:
My other style icon, in a dress I'd love to see (in that exact color) in either wool or linen. I too would leave that dress unbelted. And I wouldn't have thought that maybe I could belt my current outfit, were it not for her bringing it up --- not wearing a belt, either, as it happens, because I'm happier this way, and into the lake of fire with flattering.
EVENING UPDATE:
Those cobalt-blue jeans I was considering keeping? They just sold. Go figure. I'm not sorry --- things like this clarify a lot. I was really considering keeping them only because here they still were. And now they won't be. I did accept kind of a low-ball offer for them, but I figured that it was a sign, telling me what I needed to do.
Nice dinner on the porch with the husband, including a kind of baked-oatmeal dessert with gooseberries that I made up on the spot, because I had a handful of gooseberries big enough to pick and wanted to try them out.
The dessert turned out well, if a little weird (I mean, baked oatmeal for dessert? It was all I could think to do with what I had on hand, which was not much . . . but it was tasty, and the berries were tart and fresh without being too sour). And the bush is still loaded, so I might pick more tomorrow and maybe make a little refrigerator jam. I want us, not the birds and squirrels, to eat these berries, so I'd better move fast.
The blueberry bushes are already laden, too. They're still fairly small --- the newer lot are two? years old? I think? --- but to be the size they are, they have a lot of berries. Must watch like hawk. I'd forgotten that these were such an early-producing variety. I think the one older bush at the end is later one.
The blackberries are blooming away. They will produce for most of the summer, though they've never produced profusely all at once --- just a berry here, a berry there. But this year there are lots of blooms.
Tomorrow I need to buy groceries, and maybe also clean the fridge, in addition to other agenda items. But now I've just put Dora to bed and am going to my own bed. I slept badly last night and felt a little sick all today, so didn't bounce on my trampoline or do much of my normal physical activity --- here's to sleeping well tonight and leaping back into action tomorrow.