This isn't even an image of the view out of my window. It's literally a view of my window, reflected lamp and Morning Offering window film included. Still, it represents another point in the circling year as seen from this window: the bare willow oak, the lights over Miriah's front door in the gloom of a wet December day.
*Secondhand Wool& Sierra dress (S) in Washed Navy, bought two weeks ago, last worn December 5. Total wears this year to date: 3? I think I've worn it more times than weeks owned, if that makes sense.
*Thrifted Banana Republic lavender merino sweater, bought November 2024, last worn November 5 (in the evening, with an NPL dress, for our date night). Total wears this year to date: 6 --- again, I think this is more times than weeks owned, which is nice. This sweater cost about $5, if I recall correctly. Maybe even as little as $4. So we're already down to less than $1/wear --- a lovely little cost for such a truly nice piece of clothing.
*Thrifted J.Jill cashmere scarf/pashmina, bought September 2023 in the bougie mountain consignment shop with Marly. Don't remember when I last wore it, but it's obviously a great piece to pull out in this season.
*Snag merino tights in Royal Navy, bought spring 2022, I think. Or maybe fall 2022, can't remember. In their third season of regular wear.
*Xero Tari boots, bought summer 2022, in their third season of wear as a default winter shoe.
I had thought about wearing my Garnet Hill maxi skirt with this sweater today --- it was one of the items on my outfit plan for the week --- but maxi skirts tend to get so wet and draggled in the rain, and cotton/modal fabric especially so. I love that skirt, but it's not a great choice in inclement weather. So: short dress it is. Cozy wool it is.
Despite this dress's used-condition flaws --- the hole I mended by embroidering a fish over it, faintly discolored spots on the front of the skirt, and a little pilling from the original owner's backpack on her Camino --- I'm finding it so wearable and lovely. I had forgotten how much I love the Sierra design (again, my own original Sierra, from 2021, is so sadly stretched out as to be unwearable except as a nightgown) and am still thinking that I would really like a Sierra in the forthcoming Iris Blue version. I've been wanting a dress that color since the company first produced it --- last year? the year before? --- but until now have not really liked the styles they chose for it.
NOW they're making both a Sierra and a Brooklyn in Iris Blue, which is a difficult decision . . . . but I have two Brooklyns already, both still in practically-new condition, and I'm not sure I need a third. What I would like is another sturdy dress that stands up to hard everyday wear (especially if I don't dye it and do baby it a bit in terms of washing), including the hiking trail. Obviously I'll wear this current used Sierra for a lot of situations where I don't want to have to worry about the condition of my dress, but I think I'd really like another. Iris Blue would be a perfect color: dark enough, and the fabric is substantial enough, to be a very useful winter dress, but softly colorful enough not to feel un-summery. That was the chief problem with my original Sierra --- Charcoal Heather is flattering for me, and is clearly a versatile neutral, but in July it felt very blah. That's what prompted me to dye it, a move I did not regret at the time but do regret now, as I see how it weakened the fibers and made my dress prone to the stretching I have described. Dyeing is fun for sure, and it can refurbish an old item in a wonderful way, but I have now also seen the less positive consequences and would be far more careful, especially about dyeing a new or nearly-new item, in the future.
Anyway, I do love this washed navy. It might also start to feel a little blah for spring and summer, but it is serviceable and versatile. I love it here with these tonal gradations of blue and purple. Still wearing my "academia" glasses, mostly because I'm too lazy to fish my others out of my handbag, and because the change is nice.
I began the morning by reading more of Lady Cynthia Asquith's World War I diaries --- always fascinating. In the installments that I read this morning, she remarks on the sinking of the Lusitania, noting that while the Titanic disaster, only three years earlier, had riveted the whole world for months, the equivalent loss of life on the Lusitania had caused hardly a blip. It's all things like this, and her husband writing from the front where bullets are "whizzing past his cheeks," interspersed with tea with various people (including D.H. Lawrence and wife) and bouts of "killing ourselves shopping." The fact that actually, there won't always be an England anything like this at all makes these diaries that much more poignant, as much for the writer's own rather exaggerated feelings about things ("killing ourselves shopping"??) as for the truly tragic backdrop to the strange rounds of her daily life. Tragedies have not yet begun to come home to her, though --- as I know, because I've read it all before --- they shortly will.
I'm very frustrated, I might as well say, by my own inability to write anything very good at the moment, or to set a project going under its own steam. I'm also very frustrated by the dearth of news about my new poetry book, which should have been out by now. As it is, the editing process hasn't begun at all, and I have no idea when it will begin. I am not alone in this concern --- another friend has a book that was accepted at the same time (last September) and has also gotten crickets in response to queries about it, so I know it's not just me.
ANYWAY. I suppose I should walk the dog in the rain, then concentrate on the day, whose anxieties must be sufficient unto themselves.
LATE AFTERNOON UPDATE:
Rain rain rain rain rain. It's really pouring out there now, making me glad I walked the dog a full half-hour this morning, taking a route I haven't taken in a long time, with an extra stretch of hill to go down and back up. It was misting then, and I happily swung along letting my glasses get all gemmed up with rain, but not otherwise being particularly soaked. Our walk tonight might be significantly abbreviated if current weather conditions persist.
We've been out a couple more times --- most recently, in light of how hard it was raining, I just let her out in the yard on her own recognizance and watched from the back door. She was not tempted to go chasing squirrels through the neighborhood, but did manage to transact some necessary business before bolting back up the steps and into the house.
I have written my evaluation, and I have mostly finished an essay that has proven a lot more challenging to recycle from a previous version in the Sun than I had supposed it would be. This has all been a pretty decent day's work, really. The two twin mattresses I had ordered for guests to sleep upon have arrived, and I have unboxed them upstairs in the Artgirl's room, where I hope she will be glad to see them when she herself arrives next week.
As wet as it is, the day continues to feel dank, even if it's not precisely cold. I'm very happy to be wearing all wool, which keeps me from feeling clammy. Going to make something warming for supper, though I'm not sure precisely, at this moment, what that will be.
By the way, the whole reason I picked this narrative back up again was to say that my face is not really as pink as it looks in the photos above. I'm not sunburned, have not undergone a chemical peel, etc. It's just that the natural light was fairly dim, because of the rain, so the light of my phone screen shining on my face was that much more obvious --- especially when I edited each of those photos in "enhance mode," to up the light level so that colors would show with some accuracy. That generally works for me --- to have all artificial lights off, with just the light from the window, and then to "enhance" the photo, which doesn't really impose much of a filter, but does just seem to add more light, without making the shot overexposed.
So anyway, I look as though I've been skiing, but I have not.