A cooler morning, but full of sun. The tree in Miriah's front yard appears to be budding already. It's the last day of February --- a colder February than we've often had --- and the prospect of a new month feels cheering, even if that month is unpredictable March.
Not a whole lot on today --- not a whole lot of any note, anyway. Same old, same old. I'm not unhappy at all, but things do start to seem boring to write down. Is there a day when I don't walk the dog? Not unless I'm sick, there isn't. Is there a day when I don't work on some kind of writing? Ditto.
Of course, in lived reality, the days in their sameness sparkle with interest: something to see while out walking, something to think about while reading or writing. The days give the impression of sameness, especially to write about, yet they aren't ever the same at all. Time doesn't recycle itself. Nothing repeats exactly in every detail. So when I say, Yeah, I'm doing basically the same things again today, I both am and am not. That both is and is not the story. The difficulty is that unless I want to spend more time on it than I do want to spend, it's easier just to write down the part of the story that is obvious, and try to live the rest with some attention to what I'm doing.
Wearing:
*Secondhand Levi 550 jeans (size 12), bought January 2025, worn 5 times so far.
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Bay tank (S) in Dusty Blue, bought February 2025, second wear
*Secondhand Pure teal cashmere cardigan, bought spring 2024, almost at the end of the first year of wear
Although I'm mostly tracking years of wear for non-dress items, it's useful early on to get a read on frequency of wear, especially for pieces like these jeans. I bought them thinking I might want to wear jeans again, but how much do I, really? Well, the answer is: really, I do. I still wear dresses more often, but I am in fact reaching for the pairs of trousers I've bought in the first months of this year, and I can see that continuing, at least until it's really too hot to wear them. They'll get a nice rest over the summer, then be fresh and ready to go as temperatures begin (reluctantly) to think about dropping again in the fall.
As much as I've made purchases on the basis of being able to wear an item all year, in every season, I do see the benefit of having some things that drop to the back of the closet for a while, to re-emerge when the season shifts. I don't tend to get too bored with my cardigans, for example (though I'm always thinking of colors I don't have and might need), because I don't wear them as much in the summer and am glad to see them --- actively look forward to seeing them --- at summer's end. I can see heavier trousers like these as another category of clothing that I anticipate with pleasure after not wearing them for a while. I hadn't thought about things this way so much, and I do still like having many pieces that serve me all year, but this does seem like one piece of the buying-less puzzle. If you crave novelty, then it makes sense to consider that you can create novelty with what you have, simply by putting some of it away for a while, then getting it out again.
Lent provides a similar structure. There are things in my closet that I won't wear for six weeks, simply because they don't go with purple. I will be delighted to wear them again in Eastertide, and they will feel fresher and newer thanks to the respite.
I'm not going to make a strict capsule for Lent. That's a level of detail I just can't achieve, and it actually feels less efficient than just kind of freestyling with a selection of core items. My cooking works like that, too --- I don't meal plan and shop for specific meals, but instead shop for pantry and fridge and freezer, to keep them stocked with the kinds of things I know we're going to want to eat, and spices to tilt a meal in whatever ethnic-cuisine direction we feel like. The basics are the protein sources: chicken, beef, lamb, sometimes pork, sometimes fish, beans, eggs. Those are the things that ground every meal. But then I keep, again, a wide variety of spices that can be combined into mixes for various ethnic cuisines, plus dairy (milk, heavy cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, goat cheese, feta, parmesan), plus onions and garlic, plus such grains as quinoa and rolled oats, plus canned goods such as diced fire-roasted tomatoes and coconut milk, plus frozen vegetables. Out of these things I can make pretty much anything we want to eat.
So dressing is the same way for me. For Lent, for example, I have (off the top of my head) the following purple pieces of clothing:
*NPL Mama maxi dress in Caffe Mocha
*NPL Smock dress in Grape Wine
*April Cornell vintage silk maxi dress
*ETA: Wool& Iris Blue Sierra
*Chico's purple linen button shirt
*Banana Republic lavender merino sweater
*Eddie Bauer purple cotton cable knit cardigan
*Talbots purple merino blazer cardigan
*Ann Taylor magenta (could be purple in a pinch) cashmere/rabbit-hair cardigan
*Mauve linen scarf
*Purple crocheted shawl
*Purple cashmere poncho
*Purple cashmere pashmina
*Purple Birkenstock Rosemead clogs
I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but you get the idea. I have some purple stuff. These purple things, both dresses and accessories, are like the protein in the meal. But then I have enough "spices," i.e., things that aren't purple but that mix well with purple, that I can make any recipe I want, within reason. All the greens, all the blues, some of the pinks, all the grays and browns and lighter neutrals --- those are in play here.
This feels like a good way to think about things. In Advent, I did get really bored wearing purple, even though I have a lot of purple things, and Advent is only four weeks. To persevere with this little discipline in Lent, I need to think creatively. I also have to not mind wearing some of the same things on more of a repeat setting than usual, but that's okay. I don't think I will mind that at all. But the main thing is, I think, to learn some better habits for dressing in a way that keeps me interested and not feeling deprived, because those habits will help me not rebound to buying a ton of stuff once Lent is over. I've already bought seven of the ten secondhand items I have allotted myself for the year, and one of the two new items --- so I really do need to think about how I'm going to keep it reined in, even at the end of a six-week no-buy. As I remarked yesterday, instituting a no-buy does change a behavior, but it doesn't necessarily, without some other work, change the deep habits driving the behavior you want to change.
Yesterday I said I wasn't sure how Lent was going to help me with conversion in this area, but already --- having had that thought --- I'm seeing some possible answers to work toward.
Meanwhile, I'm enjoying my layered teal and blue today. These Bay tops, as I've said before, are versatile and wearable, and I love them. In time I might like more, in more colors, because they work so beautifully with so many things in my closet. But I'm really happy to have this Dusty Blue one as well as the neutral I bought in January. Makes my jeans day feel a little elevated.
And so to work.
SLIGHTLY LATER:
*One essay done, huzzah
*Here's a color-and-texture shot, because I really like these colors and textures (even if the cashmere is a little pilled):
