Catbird on the suet feeder in the dogwood tree. Sunny and lovely today, high of 78F. I'm looking forward to a day of going nowhere, except maybe to the store for some shiitake mushrooms for homemade ramen tonight.
The last day of May --- where does the time go (except away, away, faster than light)? As always, work to do, things due in mid-June, which is suddenly not far away at all, and what I've written so far is suddenly very paltry, compared with what I need to have written by . . . deadlines.
Wearing today (at least experimentally, because I'm not sure how I feel about it):
*Secondhand Eileen Fisher merino tank top, bought January 2023
*Secondhand Cynthia Rowley linen crop trousers, bought April 2024
*Secondhand Birk Mayaris, bought April 2024
OK, I had this outfit on my list for this week, because I've been wanting to try these trousers with a more cropped top, and to see how I liked the layered darker and lighter berry pinks.
I do like the colors together very much. And I like that the high, gathered wide elastic waist of these trousers is more visible than it's been with other tops. At the same time, as always, at least in the last few years, I feel instinctively a little less comfortable in trousers than I do in a dress or skirt, and I'm interrogating why that is. It's got nothing to do with any religious conviction or modesty issue --- if I were that modest I simply would not wear tank tops, dresses above the knee, or anything with a wrap bodice, and reader, I do wear all those things with impunity. Wherever my discomfort comes from, it's not Padre Pio.
I suspect it's a function of some body dysmorphia, an exaggerated sense of proportions that to me feel better served by the line of a dress or skirt --- and I can tell myself, You have a distorted sense of your body, and there it is. Try to be at peace. But also, I think my minor emotional discomfort has to do with the movement of my clothes around my body, the fluidity or not of lines. I just like the feel of a dress with some flow, and the way my body moves and is within that fluid line. These trousers are actually pretty flowy --- in fact, when I stepped into the kitchen for more coffee, my husband said, "Oh, you're wearing some nice flowy clothes today." But the feel is not the same as that of a dress.
Possibly it's a good thing that I'm pushing myself outside what has become a comfort zone. That I feel slightly less comfortable now does not at all mean that I won't ultimately feel a lot more comfortable. One thing that raising some fairly resistant, sensory-issue-having children has taught me is to say, "Now, we all know that your first reaction is going to be no. But that's not necessarily going to be your second reaction." I've learned, myself, to stay with me a little. Read to the end of the first chapter before we decide we hate the book (just because it's not the book we finished yesterday). Try the new shirt on for an hour and see if we still can't stand it. Let the dress hang in the closet for a month and see if we feel like putting it on (this message brought to you by the desperate young mother who was sent Easter dresses for her daughter every year on Good Friday and expected to photograph said daughter in said dresses on Easter . . . for years a fraught, tearful holiday in my house, thanks to those damn dresses, made with love though they were, and the burden of expectations that came in the box with them).
Anyway, I learn things the hard way, but I do learn them eventually. What I learned to say to certain of my children I also learned, in time, to say to myself. So my first reaction, on getting dressed this morning, was to change clothes immediately and put on a dress I know I like (not a particular dress, just any dress, because I know I like them all). And I could still do that. I give myself permission. I'm not going out anywhere --- if I'm going out, you had better believe I'm putting on comfort-zone clothes, because I'm not getting stuck away from home in things I desperately want not to be wearing. I've done too much of that in my life, and I'm not doing it anymore. But at home, I can try something out . . . and if I wind up liking having it on, fine. If I don't, also fine.
Part of this, I realize, is that I'm never actually sure how great cropped trousers are on any of us. I love skirts this length, but trousers? As a shortish person, I'm just never sure. A conversation I had once, when I was pregnant, with the sender of the Easter dresses, went something like this:
Me, surveying a rack of maternity cropped trousers: I'm not sure these are going to look good on me at all. (seeing my short, extremely ROUND self cut off at the ankles and not much liking the vision)
Exasperated person trying to buy me some maternity clothes, because I was manifestly a mess: Well, you have to wear something.
As if the only choices I had in the whole wide world were these stupid unflattering things that were on trend that year and taking up whole racks at Motherhood Maternity. (ETA: they would really have been not great on my pregnant body --- I would not have wanted to feel the way they would have made me look. I don't mean at all that they were universally unflattering. I just knew they wouldn't work for me, given my body shape at the time).
I don't think I let her buy them for me (I actually can't remember now), although she was really pushing the but they're in style and cute narrative. I do not mean to dump on this person, whom I love, but I realize all the time how much my relationship with clothing is colored by that relationship, and it's better to set it in front of me and look at it than to push it away. I can't remember when I first realized that the whole way that this person relates to clothing is to see something on the rack and think, "Well, that's nice," and to assume without question that the objective fact that the clothing item is nice, or in style, or appropriate means that it will automatically look good on the person who wears it. Reader, this is untrue, but I can't, and don't feel motivated to try to, convince this person otherwise.
Relatedly, I can see with the painful vividness of hindsight just how much growing up mostly homeschooled, in circles that pushed the modesty narrative, has affected my daughters' relationships with clothing, appearance, and image. My older daughter wore tiny short dresses all through college, for example --- and the fact that her Cistercian spiritual director didn't make a big deal about what she wore, or connect her clothing to the quality of her interior disposition, was possibly the most freeing experience of her entire young life at the time. I learned to let the modesty concerns go, and to put up with the possibility of being talked about by other women in my circles because I didn't police what people wore or how they presented themselves, and I think we're all healthier for my decision to do that. It's a decision I wish I had made far earlier than I did.
But for whatever reason, today I'm on the fence about what I'm wearing, and it's okay.
I did add a top layer, because it's chilly in the house right now, and because I thought the outfit needed something:
Pink and green are natural complements, and while I would not ever wear the preppy hot-pink/lime-green combination that was all the thing in my high-school years (I don't think I wore it then, either), I like this muted variation on that theme. It's been a while since I last wore this thrifted lyocell button shirt, so today seemed like a good day to pull it out of the closet.
Anyway, I like this better. The vertical line of the shirt helps with whatever dysmorphic sensation I was experiencing. There's more shape-and-drape here than there was. Also, I feel suddenly more like artistic teacher with the addition of this shirt, and that's a vibe I can settle into. All these things make a difference. I can see the character I'm playing today more clearly.
I had thought fleetingly about taking these trousers as part of my Norway packing capsule --- but I thought this only fleetingly. The first truth that defeated this thought was the truth that then I'd have to pack an array of tops, and I really don't have room. The second truth, which I'm revisiting today, is that my relationship with these trousers is too uncertain. I have no guarantee that I will put them on and feel wonderful. And with limited packing space, I can't afford to take any item that I don't know will make me feel wonderful when I wear it. So that's one way to make decisions about packing for a trip: the wonderful factor.
But for now I feel okay. If I stop feeling okay I will change something, but for now: okay.
Relatedly, I think I'm going to resell the other pair of linen trousers I bought at the same time I bought these. I've had them now for over a month and have not moved to put them on. They are nice trousers, and someone else could benefit from them. I think it's time to let that happen.