My neighbors' tulip tree in bloom, with ivy (which will eventually kill it) and some kind of nest up there in the top branches.
It's Shrove Tuesday, and I done been shriven, so that's all good. We had our pancakes last night, watched a livestream of my friend Jane's play, and drank wine, so that's all good, too: enough Mardi Gras for the 60somethings, anyway. Tonight the husband works late, so I will settle in with some celebratory Vera (which maybe I should consider also giving up for Lent . . . let me think on that).
Today:
*Walk the dog
*No, really, write the Friday essay
*Also no, really, start writing the book chapter due on the 31st. Out of the head and onto the page!
*Read some more character-building things: Boethius, Plato, Shakespeare, Helen Castor, etc. Trying to cling on to the lurching self-study wagon here
*Eat up the Thai red chicken curry
It's cold out now, 29F, but the projected high is 61F, quite pleasant. If the sun stays out, Dora and I should be able to lounge on the front porch this afternoon. She craves the sun like no non-human, non-reptilian, non-feline creature I've ever seen --- pesters me to take her into the back yard so she can lie in the grass and soak up the heat. And when the sun is striking the west side of the house, she loves nothing better than to take up her position on the couch and bask some more. "Porch," in fact, is one of her excitement-trigger words. If you want to see some canine levitation, just ask Dora if she wants to go out on the porch. Her YES is writ large in her actions.
This is also the last day of not-wearing-purple. Mind you, my Lenten practice still encompasses roughly 95% of my wardrobe, as blue, teal, and green can all pair well with purples. But I guess I should lean into some teal or blue or green on its own while I don't have to pair it with a purple.
Wearing:
*Wool& "Legacy" Willow dress (M/Long) in Ocean Teal, bought October 2023 (second year of wear), last worn January 31. Wears in 2025: 3
*Secondhand bamboo/cotton leggings, bought fall 2021, third year of wear
*Thrifted Peruvian Connection alpaca cardigan, bought fall 2022, third year of wear
*Secondhand Birkenstock Mayaris, bought April 2024, first year of wear
Again, I'm trending more toward counting years of wear rather than discrete wears, especially for secondhand items and non-dresses. Even my secondhand dresses mostly constitute bigger, investment-level purchases, so I guess it makes sense that I'm keeping a loose tally of how many times I wear them, to divide the initial price by that number and have a sense of how much cheaper they are per wear the more I wear them, and all that. But mostly my goal is to have the clothes I like last a long time.
Secondarily, but connectedly, the goal is to cultivate the discipline of not getting tired of/bored with my clothes. We all know I like novelty, and moderating that proclivity is a constant process. Even in Lent, I don't want to have some kind of penitential, even vaguely punitive, relationship with my clothing. That would seem to invest clothing with more meaning than clothing really deserves. Clothing is amoral. It's objectively value-neutral, in the same way that the sofa is value-neutral. Nobody consider the moral implications of sitting on a sofa. You gotta sit somewhere. Likewise, you gotta wear clothes. There are moral implications, at least in certain settings, like most of the places you go in a given day, of not wearing clothes. The standard anxiety nightmare, after all, is that you show up in some public place not wearing clothes.
But the clothes themselves, and the act of wearing them? Like the weather, this is just a thing. And like the weather, clothes are there to be enjoyed. You personally might not love rain, or humidity, or whatever, and that's fine. Not wearing a certain kind of clothing because you don't enjoy it: also fine. But if you feel guilty because you really love sunshine, or you really hate cold . . . that's assigning your relationship to the weather more power over you than it should have. And if you feel guilty because you like your clothes: ditto. Owning clothing and enjoying it is normal, but those things should not have so much power that your mind is made uneasy by the fact that you own and enjoy your clothes.
Anyway, for me, at least, enjoying my clothes over the long haul entails not getting too bored with them, which entails having enough variety that there's always something just a little bit new, even if I've actually owned it for two or three years. I like pulling things out and rediscovering them. No, that's not as much fun as a package landing on my front porch with a new cardigan or a pair of shoes, but it is fun enough.
Meanwhile, when I put this dress on today, I began to consider --- again --- how much I like it and whether or not I really want to keep it. It is rather a tent. Look how much fabric:
There are, for sure, dresses in my closet that look better on me. Do I need this one? That's not a rhetorical question, but one I continue to ask. I know I'll like it better come the spring and summer, when I wear it by itself with a pair of sandals. Then the flow is just nice and airy, not so tentlike. It is a great dress for travel. I wore it a lot in Norway last year. I love the color, the neckline, the 3/4-length sleeves. The length is okay, above my knees but not too short.
I probably will keep it, because the things I like about it still outweigh the vague niggling sense of something I don't like. It is comfortable. I don't wear it to church so much anymore, because I have other, better options, but on a day like today, when I'm not going anywhere, it feels good.
Now to refill my coffee and maybe look at some poems, before the dog wakes up and needs to go out.
AFTERNOON UPDATE:
By 2:15 p.m. I have:
*walked the dog, a nice brisk walk around the whole neighborhood
*written 814 words of this book chapter, go me
*done some poem revision
*washed and hung a load of laundry
*emptied the dishwasher, which has not been working well, re-washed all still-dirty dishes by hand, took the bottom rack out of said dishwasher, steam-cleaned the entire inside, with particular attention to the filter at the bottom, wiped it out, steam-cleaned it all again, wiped it out again, then ran it empty with vinegar in the detergent compartment. It sounded a lot better in that cycle, as though the water was actually circulating the way it's supposed to. I think that's taken care of the problem (also we need to be careful not to pack it too tightly with dishes, even though it's tempting to jam in one more thing, or ten, before running it).
*eaten the rest of the Thai curry and hand-washed the Dutch oven I made it in (because the dishwasher was still doing its empty run)
*also eaten a generous handful of white-chocolate-peppermint Hershey's Kisses, left over from Christmas and tucked away in the freezer, where unfortunately for me I have rediscovered them. They don't call it FAT Tuesday for nothing, folks. Tomorrow, and for the next six weeks, I simply must rededicate myself to forgetting that there is Christmas candy in the deep freeze.
I still need to start this essay for Friday and embark on some reading. It's a long, quiet day, and I can fill it with pleasant work and mind-feeding enjoyments until it's time to think about supper and kick back with me Northumbrian friend Vera, pet.
I should probably lift some weights and do some lunges, too. Starting to feel a tad sedentary, after sitting for a whole 15 minutes.