Coffee, packing tape, and hydrangea cutting on a backdrop of morning leaves. I contemplate this view with some melancholy this morning, because I'm going to have to leave it again tomorrow, to go to Memphis for a funeral: my last uncle. His wife, my mother's older sister, died last fall at 90; he had been diagnosed with bone cancer last week, and the quick end, in his sleep, is undoubtedly a mercy. Funeral is Friday, so tomorrow on the road, Friday there, and home either Saturday or Sunday, because if I'm going that way, I have to make time to see my mother-in-law as well.
Today's agenda:
*dog walk, and also arrangements for dog to be taken out while husband is at work
*finish essays for next week
*make travel capsule/packing plan
*pack
That third item I can do right now. I had had a number of separates outfits on my list for the week, but that's out the window. I don't take separates when I travel, because simple dresses are far less trouble to pack and wear. My capsule for the weekend:
*black Eileen Fisher linen dress with black linen-silk-blend cardigan for the funeral, and black Mary Janes
*Another cardigan, probably navy linen-blend
*Wool& Brooklyn dress --- maybe both of them. They're just such perfect travel dresses
*Wool& Willow in Ocean Teal, my other absolute favorite travel dress
*Birkenstocks
*Earth Shoe Mary Janes
I'll drive tomorrow in one of these wool dresses, and hang the linen dress in the car.
So, that's sorted. The husband is taking me out to the wine bar tonight, so maybe I'll wear my purple silk dress then, since I won't be wearing it to Br. James's ordination on Saturday after all --- an event I'm truly sad to miss, but although my mother said, "Don't feel you have to come," I really do need to be at this funeral.
In other news, here are more thoughts about limits on buying, again from my favorite Finnish account. "Underconsumptioncore" is a trending idea at the moment, and while . . . where did this -core business come from, anyway? . . . I think it's a necessary idea, at least as an idea. I also think it could be the next hot way to starve yourself, and that a lot of people could and probably will take it in that direction. In the human psyche there exists a deep punitive vein, from which flows an inexhaustible fund of penalties to impose on the self and others, and no grace. So in our dealings with ourselves and others, let's all mind how we go.
BUT --- as somebody was saying on some reel I scrolled past yesterday --- it's not actually normal to be unboxing hauls of stuff all the time. It's not actually a sign of health to need the continual dopamine hit of the new parcel on the front porch. It's not actually okay to hemmorrhage money, maybe money you have, maybe money you don't have, continually and without reflection, on stuff. I think the impulse to set limits on our purchasing habits is a recognition of an area of unhealth in ourselves and in our larger culture. Can't change the world; can change my habits.
Of course, it's difficult to find limits that are at once firm and flexible to live with. I deal with this by simply allowing myself to break rules I make --- but I know I'm breaking the rule, and I think carefully before I choose to do it. Once I do, I'm not going to feel bad about it, because objectively, and speaking quite broadly, the act of purchasing some good is a value-neutral act. We all know that some purchases are hinged about with contingencies that can move them from that value-neutral center line into other moral territory, but as a general rule, you're not going to hell for buying a dress. At the same time, however, our habits always bear examination. Am I spending too much money? Am I spending wastefully? Am I buying stuff I don't need (or maybe even want) to try to fill some need in myself that stuff actually isn't the answer for?
And of course we should ask ourselves about the wider moral implications of our purchasing. Am I upholding a system of human trafficking and slave labor by my purchasing habits? That's actually a very good question to ask, even though, if our answer is yes, our yes doesn't necessarily implicate us in culpability. Sometimes, for reasons, you have to buy the clothes available to you. In terms of Catholic moral theology, this would be an instance of remote material cooperation in an evil --- you don't want or intend to uphold an entire evil system, but you really need a pair of socks, and you don't have, for whatever reasons, any absolutely ethically pure alternatives. In this instance, as really in every instance, you do your best. It's all any of us can do.
But thinking in terms of limits can help us stop and consider more carefully about what our choices actually are. That's probably more valuable to us than fideistic devotion to a particular self-imposed rule. I really like the way this Finnish woman thinks realistically about her needs and is revising her rules and limits year to year so that her needs are met --- because our needs are real, and one of our actual responsibilities is to ourselves, to ensure that we get our needs met --- but her impulses are under some regulation.
And her rules are really pretty generous. She separates her purchases into new-made vs. secondhand slots, with different limits for each category. Last year I think her rules were 5 new items and unlimited secondhand items. This year she's imposed a limit on the secondhand items, explaining that she wanted to get off the continual cycle of buying and selling, which I can understand. Resale is not that time-consuming, but it's not un-time-consuming. Doing less of it means that you get back a little time and energy, which are valuable commodities. And it uncouples you from that circular scenic train, where you're going around and around a loop always looking for the next thing. Instead --- while you might still have clothes in mind that you'd like to buy --- you get off the train and enjoy the scenery of your closet, as a destination.
That's something I continue to want to practice. I'll admit that the hint of changing seasons makes me want to buy things. There's just something about back-to-school, even when you yourself are not going back to school and have not done so in forty years, that triggers the feeling that you ought to have something new and special to mark the occasion. I don't think that's wrong, but I do think it's good to pause and consider.
As it is, I'm happy with the purchases I have made. Maybe next year I'll include shoes in my self-imposed limits, but this year I kind of left them in a loophole. Right now I'm not sorry that I did that, because I've acquired four pairs of shoes that I'm happy with for the coming season. I'm especially happy at the moment to have some funky black dressy-ish shoes to wear to a funeral, that will let me be comfortable on my feet all day. As it happens, I have so far sold two of the pairs of shoes I wanted to resell to offset this influx of new-to-me shoes, which meant that I wasn't going to be wearing the other shoes, some of which I wasn't wearing anyway --- and eventually I will get them all sold. This seems like a reasonable balance: I'm not continually reselling things, and I'm not buying things with the thought of reselling them (though that's always an out if a gamble on a clothing item doesn't work out). But if I buy some new-to-me things, then it makes sense to evaluate what I might clear out of my closet to make way. Space is also a limit.
So . . . now you know what I'm doing today, and what I'm thinking about. Gripping stuff, all of it. Words fail me to express just how much I do not want to go to Memphis this weekend, or indeed to leave home at all, but sometimes we just gotta do things, and this appears to be a thing I just gotta do. So I shall pack, and I shall organize my work, and I shall perhaps put on my lovely new silk dress --- for which I have bought a dress clip, though it won't come till tomorrow, to experiment with pulling it in at the back before I decide to take it to the seamstress to have back ties made, to set in at the side seams, a thing I'm really seriously thinking of doing, because I think it would work. Tonight I'll just wear it with a cardigan or my jean jacket.
Wearing today:
*Wool& Fiona (M) in Teal --- again, such a beautiful but discontinued color. Bought November 2022, last worn August 8, when I got soaked in the rain. Total wears this year to date: 14, I think, though I might have blipped over a wear with a skirt, so possibly 15. For a dress I often feel I'm not wearing enough, not to mention a dress which I've mended, and which has a little pilling, so that I don't ever wear her for "nice" anymore, I have actually worn this dress with remarkable regularity.
*Secondhand Kalso Earth Shoes Mary Janes, bought August 2024, last worn yesterday.
This is a basic outfit, but I really like it. The weather continues a little cooler, with a projected high today of only 81F, and a low in the high 50sF tonight. It's "false fall," and the heat will return --- or soon enough, I'll be complaining about how warm it is when the temperatures settle into this exact pattern for weeks on end, through September and into October --- but I'll take it. It's perfect porch weather, and nice for dog-walking as well.
Which last in fact is what I need to engage in shortly. Maybe I'll also give my Brooklyn dresses a quick rinse and hang them out to dry before I pack them or set one out to wear tomorrow. I'm glad I've changed the sheets and done the basic weekly housework, including washing all Dora's bedding, which I did yesterday afternoon.
On with it.
LUNCHTIME UPDATE:
In happier news, I've just found out that I'm going to the Catholic Imagination Conference in October, right on the heels of my archdiocesan event with my publisher, the novelist Joshua Hren, in Milwaukee. Now to figure out an itinerary to encompass those two events, running from October 28-November 3, inclusive of travel.
But I'm really thrilled. I'd thought I wasn't going --- I don't go to conferences just to go, especially if I have to pay. But to go for a reason, which in this case dovetails with promoting my new book: YEAH. I'm assuming I'll at least have the cost of the conference waived, if not actually get paid to be a speaker, but even if I had to pay the fee, I could more readily write it off on my taxes.
And now it looks as though I'm going to roadtrip with friends down from Milwaukee to South Bend for the conference at Notre Dame. Fun times! Fun times!
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
Back from a longish walk with Dora on the greenway --- we haven't walked there regularly in a long time, but she's been wanting to go down that way, and we manage to hit it when it's not really crowded with people and dogs. Today we passed bicycles and walkers calmly and successfully, and it was a lovely time outdoors in the cooler weather. In just a few minutes I'm going to crate her again and go up to the post office to see if I can't drop this package I'm shipping out for a Poshmark buyer via the parcel drop. It's all set with a prepaid label, but I missed the mailman this morning, and would like to get it off to her before I leave town.
Also . . .
The color is way off here, but this is my beloved Pacific Brooklyn. Taking her down off the clothesline today, I noticed a number of tiny snags like this --- this is the biggest, in fact. I'm sure they're the dog's doing. Aaaaaannnnnnd we'll live, obviously. I have a little snag tool that I can use to try to draw those looped ends back through. If that fails, I can mend holes. I've done it before, and I can do it again.
But sigh. I really wonder whether I will buy more of these dresses. I love them so much --- this style in particular. But for the money I spent on them, they are not standing up that well to the rigors of life with me. This is true even given that I wear them in long rotations, with plenty of rest in between. My newer dresses, which have been handled more gently (including this Brooklyn) are faring a lot better than my original two dresses, from 2021, neither of which is really a dress to wear out of the house anymore, unless I'm on the hiking trail.
I'm tempted to draw a comparison with my linen dresses, but I think it's really too early to tell. I've had this dress six months longer, at least, than I've had the oldest of my linen dresses. Linen feels tougher. Woven fabric just doesn't catch and snag the way knits do. As much as I love wearing wool . . . I dunno. Are they all going to end up being nightgowns and winter base layers? There are worse things, I guess. But I really like them as dresses. At the same time, I'm not going to get rid of my dog, and although her jumping up is better, she still jumps and paws a good bit more than I like. I need for my clothes to withstand that.
Sigh . . .
Well, anyway, that's not going to change my love for this dress at the moment. I'll put her on and wear her until she just truly doesn't feel nice anymore, at which time she'll hit the hiking trail with me. Still, dang.
Oh, I've also finished one essay. I think the other can wait a bit. Have walked my package to the post office and posted it off, so that's something. I should now pack up the Artgirl's parcels of ceramics supplies to send to her sister's house for the start of school. Better do it NOW.