Loveliest of vines, the blackberry now . . .
It's Easter Monday, I've finished my essay for Wednesday's Substack, and I need to make something to take to a party this afternoon --- but otherwise, my plan is to do nothing. Wash my hair, get dressed, walk the dog, enjoy the spring day: that's it. Read and write whatever is pleasurable. Do, in fact, only what is pleasurable, because it is the Octave of Easter, and we are feasting not only on food and drink, but on the idea of feasting itself: of not sucking it up, of not practicing self-denial, of not counting the days, but of simply living in them with unmeasured happiness. You can't really manufacture unmeasured happiness, in yourself, and you also can glut yourself on too much of too many good things (I'm looking at you, food and wine), but you can say to yourself: I'm not going out looking for mortification today.
And that's really the spirit. Easter lets us off the hook for sin and death --- though it doesn't let us off the hook of walking with Christ in discipleship and being conformed daily to his image, it does let us off the hook of thinking, for the time being, that we have to be especially brave and strong about that. Sometimes --- and this is the great gift of feasting seasons --- it's enough just to be, and to take pleasure in being. God himself rested on the seventh day, and in his generosity he gives us an entire season in which to rest from the most stringent of our spiritual labors.
Though also now we're praying for the joyful repose of the soul of the Holy Father, who passed this morning from our time-bound Easter into the eternal Eastertide. I really can't think of a better time or way to go.
So, anyway, that's the plan today.
LATER
Wearing today:
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Smock dress (M) in Emerald Green, bought November 2024, last worn February 27 (with a cardigan, wool tights, etc). Wears in 2025: 7
*Secondhand Birk Mayaris, year 2 of wear
The last time I wore this dress, it was COLD. In fact, this is the first time I've worn it as it was probably intended: as a summer dress. In fact, I love the way this dress layers. The knee-skimming midi length makes it perfect with boots. The dark tealy green goes well with cardigans and pullovers, and doesn't read as summery. I've worn it over my Wool& Aegean Teal Maggie dress for extra warmth all over, and it works beautifully.
But what fun to put it on by itself, with just a pair of Birks. It's a marvelous dressy dress --- it was one of my candidates for an Easter dress, in fact. But it's just as good in its role as a fun little comfy thing to throw on to go to a backyard party, as I am doing later on.
I am reminded that truly, my green-dress itch is scratched here. What I had considered buying a Wool& Spruce Green Sofia dress to do, this dress accomplishes. I don't need both. I am glad to be reuniting with all these colorful dresses I already own, and to be reminded that I have them, and that perceived gaps in my wardrobe are filled.
Of course, as I noted yesterday, I have made a secondhand dress purchase, and one might argue that I don't need it. Then again, I do wear purple in rotation all year round, as well as exclusively for fairly long stretches twice in the year. I'm not sure adding another dress in that color family will necessarily make next year's Lenten penance feel that much less penitential.
A lot depends on how I feel when I put it on. It could be that I decide it doesn't work for me --- I really didn't like the fit of the medium cobalt Sofia I tried two years ago. My hunch has been that sizing down will resolve the main issue (gaping/weirdly sticking-out armholes), but if it doesn't, then I will put the dress right back up for sale, asking what I paid for it.
But if it does fit and I like it, one thing I will do is consider whether I need two light-purple dresses. Of my linen dresses, my 3/4-sleeve Mama dress is the one I'm least sure of. I love the color. But in terms of fit, I think I could use a Small/Medium, not a small. It's a bit tight across the back, though not so that you'd notice, really. And although I wanted sleeves for transitional seasons, I find that actually they make the dress a bit less versatile --- it's easier and more comfortable to layer over a sleeveless dress. The main thing is that something about it feels maybe a little LARPy, like I'm wearing a cottagecore costume rather than real clothes. I don't feel this with my other dresses at all, but it may be why I don't reach for that one as readily.
Even so, I like enough about it that I'd happily keep it. My quibbles with it are so small that they could well be totally negligible. BUT if the Sofia fits and works for me, I will keep an eye on how much I want to wear the Mama dress. It could be that I keep them both, but it could be that I don't.
Meanwhile, this Smock dress! I have been dying to wear it the last couple of weeks, and it feels so great to put it on now. It's the perfect little dress (well, except that it doesn't have pockets, but I will forgive it for that deficit, because it's so perfect in every other respect). It doesn't make me feel that I'm wearing a costume or dressing up as a character --- it's just me.
I guess I have a lot of favorite dresses, really. But this is definitely one of them.
Oh, hair product alert!
I was in the store the other day, buying stuff for Easter dinner, and because I was just about out of gel, I went to the hair aisle. There I found a fabulous product for curly or wavy hair, which I purchased and with which I have no affiliate relationship whatsoever --- I'm just telling you that I bought and liked it.
This product is Not Your Mother's Curl Talk Defining Spray Gel.
I have thought, off and on, that what would be REALLY great is a product that was basically the love child of hairspray and gel. Friends, this is it. It's a very lightweight but strong-hold gel --- in a pump bottle that you can atomize onto your hair. You can use a lot of it, like actually enough to hold waves and curls in a defined shape, but it goes on so lightly and evenly that you don't feel that you've shellacked your head, which is always the problem (for me) of applying a lot of normal tube-dispensed gel with my hands.
I used it for the first time Saturday night, before the Easter Vigil, spraying it onto my wet hair, then reapplying to damp hair as I was drying it. And I loved the results, even though I gently combed out the curl clumps some before pulling the front back in a little clip. Pretty happy with my wash results today, too, though my hair still isn't quite dry, and I haven't broken the gel cast yet. It's really easy to touch up spots, too, without swiping on way too much gel in a single place.
The only thing I don't love about this product line (I also have their foam/mousse, which I like pretty well, though I don't use it all the time) is its strong scent --- but this might be a plus for someone else. In any case, the smell dissipates pretty fast, but it's definitely quite strong at first. Not unpleasant at all, but very perfumey. So that's a caveat that again, for another person, might be either a deal-breaker or a deal-maker, depending on how you feel about fragrances in your hair products.
My wash day routine today was as follows:
1. Double shampoo (i.e., lather, scrub scalp for a couple of minutes, rinse, repeat) with Humby Organics bar, which I unreservedly love
2. Light conditioning with Humby Organics conditioner bar, which I also like. A little goes a long way, but it does give good slip so that I can comb out my hair readily
3. Leave conditioner in while I complete my bodily ablutions
4. Rinse thoroughly and follow with some LUS 3-in-1 diluted with water, combing it through with my wide-toothed comb
5. Squeeze out excess water with my hands, towel off my body, then use a microfiber towel to squeeze more water out of my hair
6. Spray gel generously all over my head and scrunch
7. Diffuse about 3/4 dry, pausing in the middle to spray on more gel
8. When nearly dry, more spray gel on the ends, scrunching them again or sort of finishing curls (twirling a wave into a curl at the end of the lock of hair) with my fingers
9. Let air dry the rest of the way
10. Eventually break the gel cast, fluff hair, either pull the front back or not, and go.
This sounds like a lot, but really it's just a pretty simple, intuitive process broken down artificially into steps. The main things are to make sure my scalp and hair are very clean (but not stripped of moisture), that water is squished into my hair, that my hair has plenty of slip for easy combing (but isn't weighed down with conditioner), and that I've used light products with good hold to encourage and help my waves keep their shape. My goal is not perfect hair, but soft, touchable, natural hair doing its thing in the best way possible, with a clean, healthy scalp underneath.
So that's my product review for the week, which I hope is useful to any readers with wavy/curly hair.
Now I think I'm going to make some more cinnamon rolls to take to this party.
ALSO TODAY
I have
*cleaned and culled my underwear bin, starting a "take-back bag" for textile recycling for all the things I culled out. It's now so much less cluttered and more organized, and I can see what I have (though I cannot see my white bamboo slip and am wondering what I managed to do with it). I culled a number of synthetic things I was still holding onto --- old slips, bras, and so on.
*washed and hung a bunch of laundry: bedding, but additionally things in my underwear bin that had started to smell a bit sour. They weren't dirty, just had been in the bin unworn for a long while --- I put an activated-charcoal bag in that bin to keep everything dry and fresh-smelling from here on out. This wash included all my Kosher Casuals crop tops, which are among the synthetic items that I am hanging onto. I don't wear them as much as I used to, but sometimes still the coverage is useful with lower-cut/crossover bodices. I'd love to replace them with merino items, but it just doesn't make sense to do that right now, when they're still in perfectly useful condition.
*put clean sheets on the bed and made it up, nice and fresh to start the week