Dogwood leaves: an old tree still growing, still full of new life. There's some dead wood that needs cutting out, but new leaves all the same, fresh rained-on green that hasn't had time to fade.
It's another rainy day with storms in the forecast and highs in the low 80sF. The wrens are out, of course, deterred by nothing; I'm watching one pick at the suet feeder now.
Same old, same old work: essays to revise and upload, new essays to write, this Emily Dickinson project to contend with. I also need to reach out, as they say, to my new dog sitter possibility and try to get something lined up.
According to USPS tracking, two of my four secondhand clothing purchases should be arriving today: my green Garnet Hill maxi skirt and one of the pink linen tops I bought to form a faux jumpsuit (I hope) with my pink wide-leg linen trousers, but also, you know, just to be a top. We'll see how things fit.
I had managed to miss, until recently, the whole Instagram influencer phenomenon of "Amazon unboxing," where the influencer has gotten the day's haul of clothing from Amazon and tries it on, and you can order it all just by typing INFO or something in the comments. I obviously am not doing that, though I can see how you'd make a relative boatload of money that way, as an affiliate.
But it is fun to receive something new-to-me and do a try-on. I can't offer you the exact same things I'm wearing, because many of them came to me secondhand, and who knows when a duplicate will turn up (though these Cynthia Rowley items I've bought on Poshmark seem to be pretty common, if you did want the same things). You can in fact buy the same Wool& dresses that I have --- though they've discontinued the color of the Fiona dress I own, and apparently they're redesigning the Willow, so the models I have will become limited editions as well. You can also track down Not Perfect Linen dresses. They still make the Smock design, but I think the Leila is discontinued? Not sure, because I never go to their actual website.
Anyway, the point is really not for you to have the same things as me. The point is not at all for you even to look like me. You probably look nothing like me. I'm me, you're you, and we might not have at all the same build, the same coloring, or the same aesthetic. Your vision for how you want to look and exist in your clothes may not intersect with mine in any way. We might be antitheses of each other. That's not only fine, it's --- what? It's reality. It's to be desired. I don't want to be your clone, and I'd be weirded out if you wanted to be mine. What a boring world that would be.
So why am I probably going to try on and photograph the clothes that are coming today and post them on this blog?
Well, a) vanity, I guess. If you've been here at all, for any length of time, you've heard my spiel about what vanity really is (crippling self-consciousness, where you can't ever look away from the external or internal mirror), and how actually all these selfies, which can feel kind of narcissistic even to me, help me know what I look like, so I can stop thinking about it all the time. And believe me, in the long intervals when I am not writing this blog, I do actually stop thinking about it. It's amazing. Like magic. I dump the thoughts here, and then by and large I simply go and live my life.
But also, b) the interest of outfit-making, how clothes shape and drape, how you feel in clothes, what seems to work, what does not seem to work, and why, are all things I can really talk about only on the level of the particular. In other words, the best way for me to talk about that stuff is to talk about clothes on me. I was so hapless at all this for so long, and to a great extent I still am. At my daughter's wedding, nearly seven years ago (!!), my two oldest and dearest friends were apparently laying bets on my looking like kind of a mess, and . . . well . . . okay, old and dear friends get a pass for a lot of things, and I have to admit that this didn't just come out of thin air.
Historically, and both these women have known me since I was four years old, I have shown up places looking like kind of a mess. They saw me every day of middle and high school, where, yes, I showed up reliably as kind of a mess. I did not, as it happens, look like that much of a mess at this wedding where I was mother of the bride. I'd been thinking about clothing for some years already, and I did an okay job of choosing a dress and shoes for myself. I'd undoubtedly choose something different today, because in seven years I've learned more things. But all of this has been part of a long, gradual shift from feeling that looking good was something that happened by accident, to believing that I have some agency and control and vision about how I want to present myself --- and that it matters. That I am not a shallow person for wanting to think about things like this. I find getting dressed an interesting creative challenge, and this is good.
Anyway, when these things arrive I'll try them on, think about them, and write about them, but in the meantime, I do have to wear something I already own. Fortunately, I do already own things and can wear them.
Wearing today:
*Secondhand Japanese linen pinafore, bought November (?) 2023
*Secondhand Woolx Men's small tee, bought January 2023 and modified by me, by cutting out the neck, arms, and hem to fit my female body better
*Secondhand Birk Mayaris, bought April 2024
I last wore this pinafore on (checks notes) May 22. I'm not sure when I last wore this tee --- it's been a while, so it felt like a good piece to pull out and put on. I love this shade of blue, and I especially like it with the earthy beige of this pinafore. One of the great attractions for me, when I saw it on Poshmark, was the way the front comes together in a little overlap, as you see in the photo above. That and the under-$20 price were the major selling points. Right now it's coming unsewn at the split, and I'm either going to have to repair it clumsily myself or take it in to the seamstress, neither of which I've gotten around to doing. But I love it. It was a great dress over the winter with boots, and it's equally great in the summertime with a little tee and some sandals.
And so to work a little before the dog wakes up . . .
LATER:
Okay, well, the mail has come!
Look! Two parcels! What could be inside? Let's find out . . .
Parcel #1:
This is the Garnet Hill "Favorite Maxi Skirt." As you can maybe see, there's a lot to love about this skirt:
*beautiful sage-green color (that I'd had my eye out for anyway for quite some time)
*soft cotton-modal fabric: not my favorite fibers, but in a secondhand skirt, I can deal. It's very soft and flowy, but a little elastic in the hem on each side (hard to see in these photos --- I'll take better ones at some point) keeps it from just floating all over the place. I had thought the gathers at the waist might not be flattering, but I think they are.
*High waist/wide waistband: really accommodates the cropped tee I'm wearing. Easy to position over my stomach, where I've been experiencing some bloating lately. Turns anything into a fit-and-flare silhouette (though again I appreciate that it's not too flare-y, thanks to the elastic in the hem).
Yep, I am very happy with the shape and drape, and the overall experience of this skirt. I would not have paid $100 for it, but the $45 I did pay seems reasonable --- more than I paid for any other single item in this particular little buying phase, but given what the same skirt costs new, and given how much I anticipate wearing it, it feels like a good deal. I have really wanted a solid-color skirt that goes with my whole closet and is soft and comfortable to wear, and now I have it. (ETA: I'm already anticipating how nice this skirt will be with boots in the winter . . . and all my cardigans . . . not that I want to wear all that anytime soon, but you know, the mind does race ahead)
Parcel #2:
This is one of two Cynthia Rowley linen tops I bought. The listing said it was "boxy," and you know what? It's boxy. You can't see the little button details on each side very well here, but the design is like a button-up shirttail, which is cute.
It looks better tucked into this skirt.
It might just universally look better tucked in than out, which leads me to ponder whether I'd want to have a seamstress crop it a little and remove the buttons. I'm not going to do anything hasty, but this is a thought to let simmer.
The color is very nice.
I have been wanting some more pink.
On the other hand, it's not going to work as a faux jumpsuit with my linen trousers in the same brand.
That was always going to be the risk. You just can't tell from online photos. I'm not sure the combination is bad at all, and I might really wear them together, but they definitely don't match.
So . . . I am less jazzed about this top than I am about the skirt, but I'm not not jazzed. I could easily resell it, and that will remain a live option, but again, I won't do anything in haste. I'll see how much I wear it. I could readily envision this top under any of my pinafores, including my NPL Smock dress, for a start, which would be another argument for possibly removing the buttons so as not to have their bulk under things. I can imagine it, too, with my natural linen pencil skirt, the one with the tucks at the hem. And I do like it with today's green Garnet Hill skirt, very much.
We shall see. Again, nothing hasty. The summer is long and hasn't even begun to get hot yet. As it does heat up, linen is going to look and feel good. I certainly won't abandon my beloved wool dresses, but it is nice to have this second fiber option.
For what it's worth, this was a $13 purchase. I don't have to wear it that many times to reduce the cost-per-wear to under $1 a day.
Keeping the green skirt on, in any case, because I really am going to get this pinafore mended before the whole front seam unsews itself.
And now that we've had this delightful little interlude, it's back to work for me.
LATE-AFTERNOON UPDATE:
I've put up five more poems/essays for the Substack and have only two more essays to write to cover the time we're away.
I have ALSO (I think and hope) found a dog sitter.
So it's been a good day of chipping away at stuff and bringing down my own anxiety level about the upcoming trip. Last night I had my first stress dream about it: at the airport with my mother and the Artgirl as a child, going abroad, forgot passports, having heated discussion about whether or not we had time to go back and get them, whether or not this was any kind of big deal, when I woke up. Life will just be like this until I get on the plane, but at least one major thing I've been worrying about seems to be resolving itself. Not inexpensively, so that's a little stressful, too, but it's why I write this Substack . . .
I've about decided that I'm going to take this green skirt as part of my travel capsule, to give me another maxi option besides Audrey, using my other dresses as "tops." Any blue or teal dress would go really well with this skirt, which is insanely comfortable and has roomy pockets, a thing notably lacking in any other skirt I own. I could hike in my Camellia, for example, and then pop this skirt over, hiding the little holes and mends and presenting Camellia simply as a tank top. If chilly, add sweater. If not chilly, but extra layer desired, add kimono (which goes just fine --- I checked). It would be nice to have more options for leg coverage with my shorter dresses, other than just putting on leggings. Last year leggings were too warm 99% of the time --- but I might have liked some sun cover, for instance. Of course if it's colder, I could wear a longer skirt and leggings and be cozy that way.
Anyhow, I've been wearing the green skirt all day with my blue crop tee, and I love it. Big fan. HUGE fan of this skirt. Aside from the pockets and the hem elastic, I also love that it's a double layer of fabric, so it's still cool and airy but not see-through, and very appropriate for colder weather.
The thing the pink top seems like a match for is my old J.Jill ramie pullover . . .
Not an exact match, but they do seem to cry out to be layered together. So there's some serendipity.
Now I'd better gather myself to make some dinner. Having been treated to a pub/food-truck supper last night, I can hardly expect to have food set in front of me yet again. And we're going out tomorrow, too, to meet friends in Asheville, so it's already a week of high living.