The backyard looking Edenic in golden morning sun, yesterday morning before Mass. Really it's a mess, and returning to meadow before our very eyes, but this time of year there's something enchanted about the mess (though the snakelike incursions of the wild sweet-potato vine everywhere have their own Edenic resonances, which is one way to put it, I guess). Our little redbud trees, volunteer seedlings I transplanted five (?) years ago, while we still had the big old pecan to make them understory trees, have rapidly matured into real shade trees, as is obvious now that they're all leafed out. They'll never be really big trees, but I hope that in another couple of years the trunks will be sturdy enough to string hammocks between them.
And here's my lavender about to bloom (foregrounded by lemon thyme which is in bloom):
I scored some beautiful handmade pottery (yes, more) for Mother's Day, as well as more flowers (having been sent some lovely pale-pink peonies on Thursday) and a lot of chocolate.
We called the grandmothers, and the Fire Son called me, so all in all, it was a nice day. The Fire Son, as I learned, is in Tallahassee aiding in the cleanup after Thursday's tornadoes there. They'd gone down to do some controlled burning, but when a tornado touches down, it's all-hands-holding-chainsaws on deck. I suppose, before I knew someone in this line of work, it had not fully occurred to me just how much firefighting involves chainsaws, but it does. Anyway, this is just about the last "roll" for the Asheville Hotshots in the winter/spring season. Another week or so, and the Fire Son packs his car to drive to Missoula, and thence to Great Falls to rejoin the Lewis and Clarks, his permanent crew. The Lewis and Clarks, he told me, are in Flagstaff, Arizona, right now, which on the whole sounds better to me than Tallahassee, Florida, but he'll be reuniting with them soon enough, God willing.
The college kids, meanwhile, are packing their own car today to drive to Waynesville, for their May Term astronomy class. I need to plan to drive over and see them at some point --- nice excuse to go to Waynesville! The last time I was there was last fall, with Marly --- as a matter of fact, it's where I bought the cashmere sweater I cut up the other day, in one of the bougie consignment shops with which the mountains are now filled.
My own week is filled with the same-old, same-old, though I do have a choir practice this Friday night, to learn music for the Masses of ordination and installation for our incoming bishop. So that'll be fun. Review copies are in for The Blackbird, so I hope that at least some advance reviews will attend its launching in late August. I don't have any, mind you, but I've seen the photos. It's there, a physical book, in at least a few early copies, before the final comb-through by the proofreader.
Wearing:
*Wool& Maggie (S/Long) in Aegean Teal, bought spring 2023 (and yes, it's there, just not visible when I'm wearing this cardigan)
*Secondhand Erika&Co. linen-cotton pinafore, bought December 2023 and last worn April 26.
*Pretty old thrifted Talbots cotton cardigan, originally dark brown, color-stripped and redyed with Rit Wine dye . . . last summer? I think?
*Secondhand Birk Mayaris, bought April 2024
It's still coolish out --- last night's low was about 50F, and it's about 60F now, nice but still not too hot for a cotton cardigan. I pulled this one down because a) all my wool and cashmere sweaters are still in deep-freeze quarantine as a precaution against the moth, and b) it's been a while since I wore it (Good Friday, probably). So, wearing my way around the closet. I'd thought I might wear a linen button shirt under this dress today, but my hand fell on my Aegean Teal Maggie, so Maggie it is. Later on it'll be too hot for a full layer underneath this dress, and I do like the rich teal with the blues in this floral pattern.
I didn't intend the red liturgically, but it does make a nice nod to Pentecost, coming up on Sunday. This particular red is pink enough that it harmonizes nicely with the pinks in the pinafore's pattern. Redyeing this cardigan is one thing I'll absolutely never regret. Really I haven't regretted any dye job I've done, but in this case, the dye transformed a piece I hardly ever reached for, because the dark brown didn't do anything for me, aesthetically or emotionally, to a piece I love for all the reasons I bought it in the first place: the beautiful crocheted texture, the cropped flyaway shape, the softness-yet-warmth which made it a good year-round wardrobe staple even when I didn't love the color. I don't buy cotton, really, much at all, these days, but I'm not sorry to have hung onto cotton clothing I've had for a long time. And this cardigan does what cotton does well --- be soft, light, and warm but not too hot --- while not really doing the things cotton does badly (soak up and hold onto sweat and other moisture forever), mostly because it doesn't touch my skin in any significant way. My arms don't sweat that much.
I love the floral pattern of the pinafore fabric (which also does include some cotton), and while I'd love to have something in a "ditsy" calico print, this dress scratches that particular itch pretty well. I liked this pinafore through the winter with boots and tights and a warm cardigan (I could also wear it as a skirt with a pullover), but it's cool and floaty and wonderful for spring and summer as well. My closet doesn't include much patterned clothing at all, but it's nice to have something with that kind of interest.
The length is nice, too. As much as I love my above-the-knees dresses --- and wear them with increasing defiance, the older I get, because the world can just deal with the existence of women with wrinkly knees --- this mid-calf, almost-maxi length is really my favorite and most comfortable hemline. While I don't like being completely swathed in fabric from head to toe, I love swishing around in a nice long dress. It's a good feel. Again, I like that feel with boots, but I also adore it with sandals.
I could very easily dress this look up a notch or two by changing my shoes. One notch up would be my Crocs sandals (worn to Mass yesterday, and then all day at home). Two notches would be my Birk Papillio wedges, seen with the same dress here, back in the winter. Some sharper brown boots would also elevate the look a little. There's a limit to how much a soft, natural pinafore can dress up --- I can't imagine styling this dress for a wedding, for example, and I don't really even wear it out for date nights. But it is remarkably versatile, and for $20-ish, it's an investment I'm glad I made.
I've worn this dress with a number of cardigans: cobalt blue merino, aqua alpaca, this red cardigan, my long blue linen-blend duster cardigan. I need to remember to wear it with my moss-green corduroy blazer when fall comes around again. And it would be nice to have some kind of oatmeal pullover or cardigan to wear with it through the winter --- either a chunky Aran knit or something more delicate, wouldn't matter. Mind you, I don't strictly need such an item, but it would be nice, so I'm making the mental note.
And now I hear the pitter-patter of little Viking feet, so I had better go see what packing help is needed. Or offer to make breakfast. Or something. And also let the dog out so she can jump all over people before they depart.
LUNCHTIME UPDATE:
Progeny still packing car. I'm staying out of the way. Still easing my weekend brain into the work week, still obsessively collecting images for my Instagram "saved" folders, because I like looking at pretty things.
So, since I'm doing this --- and once the progeny are on the road, I'll start some laundry and do some housework, none of which I can really embark on until said house empties out some --- I'll share with you some of my current favorites.
I have a "Home Mood Board" as well as a "Style Mood Board," because if there's any aesthetic experience I enjoy as much as I enjoy clothing, it's domestic interiors. All my "mood boards" have evolved over time and really reflect a continuum of moods, not one mood. Recently --- well, probably for the last year, can't imagine why --- I've been saving a lot of images of traditional Scandinavian houses. These aren't Danish mid-mod design, which is ubiquitous and overdone anyway, but more like Scandi-cottage, comfortable and light, not minimalist but not cluttered, with soft plays of color, texture, and form. Rooms like this kind of send me. And this. Check this out, too: Even though I'm already spoiled for porches, I'd give a lot to have a sun porch like this. My front-corner sunroom (really just the smaller parlor of my house's double parlor) is the closest thing I have, and now I have ideas about upping its sun-porch mood. The layered neutral walls and trim in these interiors gives me a lot of ideas as well --- and a lot of validation for having chosen similarly neutral paint colors throughout my own house.
My house is always going to be a lot more cluttered and less clean, a kind of fusion of Traditional Scandinavian, English Cottage, and Southern Gothic Arty Old House, but whatever. I do like the Southern Gothic Arty vibe that my increasing handmade pottery collection (thank you, Artgirl), gathered on every surface, continues to impart to my own interiors. There's that patina of dust, a thing you do not really see in Norwegian interiors, like at all . . . But then there's also the Polish Catholic Cottage vibe and, inescapably, the mood of the Oxbridge academic's college rooms, with books on every surface. I . . . uh . . . live in all these spaces, simultaneously: faith and art and literature and natural history and family and everything else, all jumbled up in a Cabinet of Curiosities. This is my house, and if there's one thing I can promise you, it's that you will not find this house on HGTV.
It's also nice to have my love for Benjamin Moore's Linen White vindicated. It was a hugely popular designer choice in, say, 2007. Not so much now. But I'd still choose it for its warmth and glow, over just about any other shade of white. And I love it (or something that looks just like it) in this image. It makes for a neutral space that's never cold or drab, even when the only colors are this white and various shades of brown.
I realize that most of the domestic images I save are of dining areas: kitchens, dining rooms, nooks, whatever. There is just something about a table where people gather, and the way the whole space is dressed for the experience of eating together, that I never get tired of contemplating. I love my own dining spaces, both the kitchen where we eat every day, and the dining room with the long refectory table, where I can seat a lot of people for a lot of fun over dinner. Even most of the time, when it's waiting for people instead of hosting them, I find my dining room beautiful, calm and contemplative in its filtered light on the north side of the house. And I love dishes. I adore a table set for a feast, but I also just love dishes as an aesthetic element, not as merely utilitarian items, in tidy matching sets.
It's just so easy to have beauty in your life by choosing and using pretty dishes --- my mother-in-law used to protest that I was going to too much trouble, every time I had her over for a meal, because I had taken time over setting the table, and it wasn't even Christmas or anything. And I would protest that I just enjoyed doing that. I don't think she believed me, and it always made me sad to think that she felt that she wasn't worth going to any particular trouble over (even if I had set the table out of duty instead of pleasure). But I've always thought: why bother not pleasing yourself with the color and pattern of your plate, even if you're just eating a grilled cheese by yourself? Why not take pleasure in the form of the mug you're drinking your tea out of? It's no more trouble to please your eye than it is not to please your eye --- and your life is subtly enriched every time you do choose the pleasure.
I was going to talk more about clothes, too, but maybe I won't right now.
OK, WELL:
Everybody's gone now. I've made a quick sweep through the downstairs, clearing surface clutter --- mail to the mail basket on the table by the front door, dishrags into the laundry basket at the foot of the kitchen island, laundry from that basket and the bathroom hamper into the washing machine. And I've made the bed and hung up yesterday's clothes. That's all I'm probably going to do today, but it's made a difference. Areas I can see are tidier. Not perfect, but less cluttered --- and they do say that visual clutter drives up women's cortisol production, so all of this was a gesture toward my own physical and mental wellbeing. Tomorrow maybe I'll venture upstairs and make the beds (OR later today if I get bored, but I'm not holding myself to any standard) and gather towels, etc, for another round of laundry. As much as I love having people here, the sheer impact on my housekeeping is . . . well, I miss them already, but the tradeoff is a reduction of this impact, which means more energy for me to use in some other way.
Goofing around on this blog, for example. This is the only writing I really feel like doing, and you know, it's Monday, and my essays for next week won't take me four days to write, and I really will sit down with Emily Dickinson in a little while, but here. we. are. Writing is writing, non?
Here, for one thing, is a shot of all my Mother's Day flowers and pottery:
And, for another things, here's my beloved dining room, currently appropriated as an exam-grading command center:
You can see here what a mashup we are of Scandi neutrals, Polish Catholic Cottagecore, and Arty Southern Gothic. It's all here. And I wouldn't get rid of any of it, to achieve any one of these aesthetics. The really valid aesthetic questions are: do I like it? do I think it's beautiful? can I articulate why I think any one given thing is beautiful? Does each thing mean something to me? Well, then. If the answer is yes, to at least some of these questions, then it belongs in my interior design. It is my aesthetic. Next question?
Or, well, let's change the subject and talk more about clothes. They are what my fancy turns to in the springtime (and any other time of the year).
I save things to my "Style" mood board for all kinds of reasons. Sometimes I like the outfit, just the whole thing, like I wish I were wearing it right now. Sometimes I like just some element of it --- the color, the line, the fabric, the pattern --- and want to remember it, even if the actual outfit were not one that I would wear. And sometimes I just like the person's image, like what she projects about who she is. I particularly gravitate to women outside the current mainstream beauty norms and conventions --- women who are not conventionally beautiful, yet are beautiful and comfortable in their own beauty. I saved this image, for example, of a happy-looking older woman who is clearly comfortable not wearing obvious makeup, comfortable with her natural hair, comfortable with her style. I do like the shawl she's showing off, though I often find that I like shawls more in theory than in practice --- if you're holding a shawl around yourself, then your arms aren't free to do other things. But I do love that shawl, and the tonal gray outfit, and the whole vibe, even though I myself wear shawls only limitedly and jeans hardly at all.
I see a photo like this, and I think, Oh, yeah. THIS is the kind of old lady I want to be. Like THIS. Looking at her whole grid, I see that she makes beautiful things, but also that she is beautiful, and she's not saying to herself, Oh, I'm too old. I'm not allowed to be pretty. Maybe I'm creeping here a little (I am always fascinated by people this way), but really . . . when I look at images like this, I not only admire the clothes, but I am able to imagine myself feeling this way, and saying to myself, I am allowed to feel and be pretty.
Sometimes I save images like this because I love the composition. I can't even see the actual clothes, but I love this array of florals in their soft colors. When I say I'd like more floral dresses, this photo is a composite of what I mean.
I really want a pair of these shoes. This is why I made a no-new-things rule this year: to make me really stop and think before I splash out on something. I have not yet seen this brand on Poshmark, either. In fact, I don't know how good they really are. But words like "handmade" sure do catch my attention. I could so easily have no impulse control. Hence, rules.
This is the kind of dress I love in a beautiful color --- but then I realize it's basically the same color as my Beetroot Brooklyn dress, so that's okay. I can scratch at least part of that itch simply by reaching into my closet.
I might have shared this one before, but the washed navy and purple are so delicious together. This woman, too, has a lovely style and sense of colors.
I saved this image because the dress the woman is wearing looks just like the Fiona, one of my favorite Wool& designs, in a color I wish the Fiona came in. They seem to be phasing that dress out, with no plans to add new colors, which is a shame. I guess I'm in the minority in liking this fluid elastic-waist design better than the newer dresses with set-in waists, most of which look as though they'd be too low for my short-waisted torso. Anyway, I wish it did come in a sky blue (or the new Sea Blue that they've added to the Brooklyn lineup). I'll be sad when my Teal Fiona wears out --- I just discovered some fairly significant pilling on the backside the other day. No idea what caused it.
I mean, it's not that visible. And I certainly won't stop wearing this dress. I'm not that much of a perfectionist. But it is a sign of wear that makes me anticipate maybe a little shorter future than I might have hoped for this dress. Holes you can mend. But pilling? I know you can shave it off, and I have been thinking about getting one of those little shavers. Some of my cardigans could really use an anti-pill treatment. But then you're thinning the fabric, which also shortens the life of the garment, and what do you do?
I always say I'd buy more of this dress if . . . but in truth, I'm really pondering whether I want more Wool& dresses. I love the ones I have. I am sorely tempted by the tencel Camellia at the moment, in the new heathered colors, because I love my tencel Audrey. Actually, I do wish they would make more dresses in that fabric, because I think the tencel adds a lot of sturdiness that I seem to need. But really --- I don't think I'm that hard on my clothes, and yet . . . I wish they held up better, particularly given the price point.
I am willing to pay more and have fewer clothes, especially new ones, for slow fashion and sustainability and ethical work practices. But I would like for those clothes, with normal wear, to last me more than eighteen months in good condition. I guess I'm not surprised that my two oldest dresses show serious signs of wear, because I wore them constantly, and I mean constantly, when they were the only wool dresses I had. AND I redyed both of them, which almost certainly has taken its toll. My Sierra, which used to hit above my knees, is now a mid-calf dress, and I doubt the fibers would have stretched out that much had I not stressed them by redyeing them. I also tumble-dried that dress more during its active life than I have any of the others. AND I really should have bought a regular, not a long, to begin with.
So anyway . . . I cast a longing eye over their website from time to time, but I have vowed not to buy any dresses this year (aside from a gardening pinafore and a black choir dress, neither of which I'm sorry I bought, and neither of which is really part of my normal wardrobe). I'm glad I did make that vow, because it's giving me time to think a lot and not get caught up in new designs, colors, etc. It's giving me time to see, clearly, how my clothes perform over the course of a year, the same dresses, over and over, albeit in a long, gentle rotation. So far, my Brooklyns are holding up very well despite a lot of wear --- possibly because they don't have pockets? I have seen more wear around pockets in these dresses than anywhere else, and although I love having pockets, that gives me pause. My poor Aegean Teal Maggie (which I'm wearing today) has gotten pretty beat up, but I really think that's user error. I know where the holes came from. And my Marine Blue Maggie is practically perfect, despite being two years old and worn a lot. My Audrey is in very good shape, but I did have to mend a probable stress hole, where a pocket meets a seam. I had to mend my Wisteria Willow for the same kind of hole, but both my Willows are otherwise fine.
So really, when I look at the whole picture, it's better than I fear. But it's good to take stock periodically, and good to have a year when I'm not acquiring more (more dresses, anyway --- I have certainly acquired more of other things!). Wearing what I have means paying more attention to what I have --- in the way of dresses, anyway. Meanwhile, I'm certainly enjoying my three secondhand Not Perfect Linen dresses and paying attention to how they wear. In the future, I could see more secondhand dresses in a careful selection of brands, and far fewer new ones, as my mode.
But we'll see. I'm boring myself now, and Dora needs to go out.
Oh, and finally (maybe): Here's another picture of the dining room, with the lights on so you can see, a little bit, the glow-up effect of the Benjamin Moore Linen White paint.
It's a boring white, you say --- but it's radiant in lamplight and candlelight, especially after dark. It's also so creamily pretty when the sun shines in during the golden hour before suppertime.
Now, what's boring is that rug, but really, for a cheap Overstock.com indoor-outdoor polyurethane thing that I bought fifteen years ago because we had little kids and a big dog . . . it's not bad. It's not nearly as cheap and cheesy-looking as it might be, is what I'm saying. One day I will have a Persian rug in that dining room, which I know for a fact because my mother is leaving me hers. I'm not in a hurry, mind you, because I like having a mother more than I care about having a rug. But yep. One day that will be the case. Really, the more I think about it, the more I like the polyurethane rug.
Oh, also, one really great thing I have learned from Scandinavian interior Instagram accounts is to lay your square tablecloth on the diagonal. This pretty little tablecloth is currently covered with exam papers, but laying it on the diagonal made it look not-weird as a small cloth on a long table. I don't think this trick would work with a rectangular cloth, but it's a great way of using your smaller square cloths, especially on a big table. This table has been set this way since Easter --- I guess really I should change it, but I won't bother until the exams are done. Then maybe I'll just range some pottery down the middle, possibly interspersed with candles.
Or something. But now I've got to ponder what's for dinner, because I really don't know . . .
BEDTIME UPDATE:
Dinner was a mashup of last night's Vietnamese lemongrass beef (very delicious, but quick and easy). with cauliflower rice, plus Friday night's mango-black-bean-cilantro salsa. I just added chili powder and more cumin to the beef and warmed it all up, and we had it as dinner bowls.
Here's an actual bowl, part of an 8-piece set I bought in our neighborhood thrift store for $3, with a plate I bought in a Cambridge charity shop for a pound underneath.
