Study shelf-top still-life in bland morning light. Supposedly we're getting more rain today, but the high again is about 64F, nice and mild. So far, no rain, just cloud and pearly sky. I'm drinking my coffee and arranging my brain for the day.
Agenda:
*dog walk
*reread Dilexit Nos and the previous encyclical on imaginative literature, mostly for pull quotes for this class handout I realize I'm not quite finished with
*finish off and send class handout
*go out and buy dog food and Dr. Bronner's soap refills, since I'm using Dr. Bronner's for just about every imaginable household thing (hand soap, bath soap, laundry soap, bathtub cleaner, etc).
*trampoline for 20 minutes, listening to Moby-Dick
*read The Eagle and the Hart (I think I'll save my next Shakespeare for when I get back)
*continue figuring out my packing for New Hampshire, making true the idea that packing small is packing beautiful --- a phrase I have just now coined
*make, serve, and eat dinner --- I've had chickpeas on in the crockpot since last night
*8 pm Fare Forward prizewinners' poetry reading (I'm an honorable mention again)
Re the New Hampshire packing, I was digging through one of my hanging shelves today in search of a particular pair of leggings, when my hand fell upon the silk-cashmere-merino tank that had gone missing for a while (turns out it was in with my wool dresses on the top hanging shelf in the closet). THIS is the Key to All Mythologies, thought I. I can take any dress I want and wear this tank under it, with merino or cashmere tights, and be warm.
So I think I'm going to leave the Sierra dresses at home and take thinner knits and linen, to layer over that tank, with cardigans: my chunky Connemara cardigan, because its the warmest one I own, plus I think my teal cashmere cardigan, which is pretty and also quite warm. I think if my whole scheme is --- wait for it, you'll be shocked --- blue and teal, with no outlier colors except maybe gray, I'll do well.
Meanwhile, that's very much my scheme today.
Wearing:
*Wool& Willow dress (M/Long) in Ocean Teal, bought fall 2023, last worn Jan 6 (??). That long ago? Anyway. Wears in 2025: 2, I guess.
*Secondhand O'Connell's vintage merino cardigan, bought January 2023, entering on a third year of wear, I think
*Secondhand Allbirds navy tencel-merino leggings, bought May 2023, second year of wear
*Secondhand Birkenstock Rosemeads, having a moment this week, bought spring 2023, soon to be entering a third year of wear, I think.
Back on my swing-dress-and-leggings game. I don't want this to be a rut, but it is a comfortable option when the weather is betwixt-and-between. These leggings, though thicker, are not as warm as my Snag merino or cashmere tights, but they're fairly warm and offer some coverage when, again, it's warm but still winter.
I had been scrolling through the photos from the 30-day challenge I did in this dress in October 2023, and was surprised by how many of the outfits I still liked. Some . . . eh. And I'd cut my hair short in the middle of it, and that in hindsight is really eh. Still, I find I like more of those outfits than I dislike, and many combinations I should remember to wear again. One of those combinations includes this cardigan, which hasn't gotten as much wear recently as it did when I first owned it, two years ago. I really like it layered over this lovely teal --- the saturations seem pretty balanced next to each other, and these are both colors that make me feel lit up and at my best.
I wanted something particularly good, since I'll be on Zoom tonight reading a poem. This combo is effortless and comfortable, but I will look good in a square on a screen.
The navy leggings extend the tonal blue-on-blue theme --- I also hadn't worn this pair in a long time, but I wanted the dark shade without defaulting to black. The whole outfit would look a lot more put-together with boots, but I'm going to be living in the same pair of boots for four days straight next week, and I'm a little tired of boots right now. It's all too easy just to step into these Birks and be done with it --- but I also like the little soft contrast they provide to all these blues.
I am trying consciously to wear things I haven't worn in some time, or as often, all the while not necessarily pushing myself out of my comfort zone. I don't feel like making weird outfits just for the sake of wearing something.
I did try to take some less-flattering shots as well, again to normalize for myself how I look from various angles. I didn't go out of my way to look bad --- I didn't slump, for example, which is the surefire way to look worse in your clothes (whatever you're wearing) than you have to. Like, if you want to be sure you don't look your best, just slouch. Works every time.
But side views in swing dresses are . . . you know. Maybe not great? Then again, no matter what I'm wearing, this view tends to be less pleasing to my own eye than others.
As you can see from my face in those first two shots, I wasn't even trying to look cute. One epiphany that occurs to me, looking at the first two images, then the third, is that you can shift even your worst angle simply by
1. Moving your body rather than standing in a squared-off, static position
and
2. Smiling like you mean it
Is this my most "flattering" dress to begin with? Well, no, but I like it anyway. I tried to sell it, but I'm glad I didn't. "Flattering" really doesn't enter into why I like it --- I just like the flow as well as the color (in which I do look good, which is another reason why I decided to keep it).
But even an "unflattering" dress will look a lot better if you don't just lump around in it, in the belief that you look terrible. That signals to you and the rest of the world that you do in fact look terrible, that maybe you don't even deserve to look good. You certainly don't deserve to feel good about yourself. Yep: that's the message you can send yourself if you want. But ACTUALLY: you probably look better than you feel. And you WILL look better if you stand better, and if you smile like a happy person, the way you would smile at somebody you're overjoyed to see. Practice in the mirror, practice in selfies --- practice being overjoyed to see yourself, as if you were that person you love so much, and are so glad to see, that you don't even think about how your face looks.
That's an instant, free makeover. You don't have to buy new clothes, have your makeup done, or get your hair styled. You don't have to lose weight. You can transform yourself today --- right now --- by holding yourself with dignity and letting yourself feel happy with yourself (or at least practicing that alien feeling until it starts to become a little less alien and more of a habit).
Meanwhile: One advantage of a late Lent and Easter this year is that we'll have a good many warm days, and it will be really spring for a lot of it. Now, our spring is variable, not reliably warm, but still, it can be very nice. I can see wearing these Birks with a dress, purple or not, and bare legs on any number of days in Lent and meeting my little personal rule of Lenten-purple-every-day. They go with just about anything in my closet except my Cinnamon Rose Leila, which --- as it did in Advent --- will be in hibernation for the season. Ditto my floral cotton-linen pinafore, which I need to make a point of wearing in the next month, and probably my Beetroot Brooklyn, which so far I haven't worn at all in 2025.
It is okay, actually, that some of my clothes are resting right now. That I haven't reached for them in the last month does not mean that I don't reach for them as a rule. It's nice to have some things take the back burner for a little while, to be rediscovered as the season changes. I don't have hard-and-fast winter clothes and summer clothes, and I basically don't buy core items that I can't wear year-round, but I find that I like being able to cycle, wearing some things more in one window of time, other things more in another.
I also think it's okay that when I'm planning for travel, I default to the same little range of things that I know without a doubt I'm going to feel good and appropriately dressed in: blue and teal, Fiona dresses, one or two linen dresses as space permits for variety and a more dressed-up feel. It's a little different if I'm driving, of course. For my road trip to Texas in late February, I'll probably throw in more linen dresses because a) Lent is coming, and I'll want to wear my Cinnamon Rose Leila as much as I can, and b) it might or might not be really warm there. I think I'm going back to New Hampshire for a conference in August, and then again I'll probably take more linen than I ordinarily would, even if I'm planning to fly, just because summer. Ditto a writing trip with a friend to Santa Fe in September.
Anyway, I'm comfy today for the soft temperatures that are what I love about winter in the South. I like a little true cold, but I also like a respite from it. I don't need winter to go on and on and on --- this becomes more true the older I get. My bones like to be warm. I will have fun in New Hampshire next week, I feel certain, but I don't think I'm going to long to live there.
And away we go.
LUNCHTIME UPDATE:
*Nice walk with Dora in the mild late morning, managing not to bark either at some Yorkies (very noisy, because they definitely saw her) or at a DryPro workman at a house around the corner, clad in reflective gear, hard hat, and head lamp, who stepped out from behind his truck and startled the daylights out of poor Dora. She held it together, though, for which I am proud of her.
*Jumped for 20 minutes on the trampoline, my new record. Listened to Moby-Dick, Chapters 4, 5, 6, and part of 7.
*Drank water
*Drained chickpeas, added fresh water, set them to cook again in the crockpot. I don't want them mushy, but I do want them soft, before I decide what to do with them for supper.
*About to make myself a kefir smoothie with raw-milk protein powder and collagen for breakfast/lunch. I did drink a glass of kefir when I got up as well.
*Next going to read these encyclicals and add pertinent pull quotes to my handout before I send it for distribution to these seminar students
*Also reading this, on weird children, by the hit-or-miss philosopher Agnes Callard (so far I think she has a hit with this one, but I haven't finished it yet) --- though I am glad she qualifies some of the claims she describes. (and some claims I disagree with, but that doesn't negate the validity of what I think I understand her argument to be)
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
*Sent in my handout.
*Researching Flanders, especially the provinces of the Duchess of Brabant (patroness of the chronicler Jean Froissart), in the 1380s, for something I'm trying to write.
*Still need to haul myself to the store.