Glorious Easter! The best day of the year!
Every year we gird ourselves for the Triduum, into the darkness and out again into the light. Good Friday is always a slog. Holy Saturday is always long and inconsequential. But then there's the Great Vigil of Easter with the monks --- the brazier flaming outside the church door, the darkness inside, candles lighting the stalls and glinting on the gold thread in the vestments and the abbot's miter. Last night, looking up into the sanctuary, I thought how ancient it all is, and how familiar people are transfigured into creatures of marvel and mystery: Brother Tobiah tending the fire, the abbot in his regalia, Father Elias chanting the Exultet. I would not trade the Easter Vigil in the Holy Night for anything. It is all the treasure I want, every year.
We got home around 1 a.m., had a festive glass of wine, and went to bed. I was up again at 6:15 to be at St. Michael's at 7:45 for choir rehearsal, a commitment I was regretting until I got there. This was another lovely Mass, with hymns that don't usually get sung at the Vigil --- it had been some years since I'd last sung "Jesus Christ is Ris'n Today," for example. Saw more people I know, to wish them Happy Easter, then came home, ate cinnamon rolls I'd baked yesterday, and futzed around until we kind of felt like eating Easter dinner, which we did around 3 this afternoon.
At one point I actually googled the question that was plaguing me: Why does cooking make you not hungry? Various possible answers, including olfactory overwhelm and the fact that cooking stimulates leptin, the hormone of satiety. So that's why I never want to eat holiday meals I cook . . .
I did manage to eat this one, which was pretty good, I have to say. I made lamb loin chops (marinated since yesterday in olive oil, lemon juice, a spice mix of basil and oregano, and whole garlic cloves, which I cooked in the pan with the chops. With the chops we had roasted asparagus (marinated in a similar mix of things, just without the spices) and fresh salad from the garden. I have butter and oak leaf lettuce in abundance, so I tossed that with a little red-wine-vinaigrette and sprinkled on some feta. We had little dishes of prosciutto-wrapped dates, and then for dessert, strawberry shortcake.
This was rather a feast for two people, but we got through it. Good conversation, especially when you consider that we have seen each other more or less non-stop all weekend, and you'd imagine that we'd have run through all our topics.
This was also a nice opportunity to use some pretty things that hardly ever see the light of day. The husband bought me four of those little silver pedestal dishes in an antique shop in Cambridge, and I used them a lot until our family outgrew them. Then I just sort of forgot about them. But they're in the same box as my silver goblets (I have 8, from a much larger set that belonged to my grandmother, some of which had been her mother-in-law's), and they weren't all that tarnished, so on Holy Thursday I pulled them out and shined them up and used them. Then today I thought they'd make a nice presentation for these prosciutto-wrapped dates, so there they are. That's mint sauce in the glass cruet, also a gift from the husband that has been woefully underutilized.
I tend to forget I have things. But then I'm glad I do have them, when I want to set a nice table --- which is worth doing, even for just two people. Really, it's worth doing for just one person, though I can understand not wanting to pull out all the stops every day. There are things in my cupboards that I'd be just as glad to move along to the progeny, sooner rather than later --- people will be settling into more grownup homes, and I HOPE getting married . . . but even if they don't, they deserve to have and use nice things. I'm just waiting for more than one person to be kind of launched, and then I'm going to stop buying Christmas presents and just start giving people stuff I am truly not using out of my Really Nice Tableware hoard.
In other news, I am really happy to be reuniting with all the clothes I didn't wear during Lent! This sounds so silly and trivial, but it really is like having a closet of new clothes. The change in the weather has a lot to do with it --- at the start of Lent, we did have some warm days, but it was still winter. I was still wearing warm cardigans, tights, and boots all the time. Now it's practically summer, just in time for dresses I didn't love so much with layers, but do love so much on their own. I liked my Lenten capsule wardrobe a lot, but I'm ready not to wear it for a little while.
What I wore for the Triduum:
Good Friday:
*Wool& Audrey dress (S) in Black Heather, bought November 2022, last worn Palm Sunday. Wears in 2025: 11
*Secondhand Loft linen cardigan, bought spring 2024, near the end of a first year of wear. I don't wear this cardigan much, because I don't wear black much, but it is a nice cardigan. I really liked it in combination with my heathered dark-charcoal dress.
*Secondhand Birk Mayaris, year 2.
Holy Saturday:
*Wool& Sierra dress (XS) in Iris Blue, bought January 2025, last worn April 16. Wears in 2025: 20
*Secondhand Flax linen skirt, rescued from the sale box and given a reprieve for the present. Bought early 2024, in a second year of being owned by me, but not worn for a chunk of that time. It just occurred to me that it would look nice over this dress, as well as with other items I own. I did do a bit of spelunking in the outbox, here at the end of my no-buy --- though I did also cull some other things from the closet and put them up for sale.
*Secondhand Birk Mayaris, year 2
For the Easter Vigil:
*Secondhand vintage April Cornell floral rayon maxi skirt, bought fall 2021, year 4 of wear
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Dusty Blue Bay tank, bought March 2025, year 1
*Secondhand Banana Republic silk-cotton cardigan, year 1
*Secondhand Birk Papillio wedge sandals, year 1
I really liked this outfit. The colors felt totally delicious, and I just always love the sweep of the skirt. I did wear blue for the Annunciation, but that was a LONG TIME AGO, people. It was just marvelous to wear this soft, springlike combination.
Easter Day (for Mass and beyond):
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Leila dress (S/M) in Cinnamon Rose, bought December 2023, last worn March 2 (with my thick Connemara cardigan, wool tights, and boots!). Wears in 2025: 5
*Secondhand Not Perfect Linen Bay tank, repeated from last night
*Very old Jones New York rayon cardigan, bought about 20 years ago --- coming to the end of a second decade of wear, if not already launched into a third decade
*Birk Papillio sandals also repeated from last night
What I really love about these Easter outfits is that I made them out of clothes I already owned --- yes, I could have bought myself a new Easter dress (though I'd have had to do it before Lent), but I had these pretty things hanging in my closet, waiting to be worn.
My Lenten no-buy has come to an end, and I have celebrated with one secondhand purchase, which I'd been considering for some days: a Wool& Sofia dress in Small, in the now-discontinued Purple Heather color (yes, yes, purple, but it's very pale and springlike, and assuming it fits, I am going to wear it, so there). It had been hanging around for sale for a while. The seller had made an offer of a discount, but nobody had bitten. That offer expired, so I decided to try offering her a just-slightly-lower offer to see if she would accept it. I don't like to low-ball people (my own Wool& dress currently for sale has received some laughably low offers, which I have declined, because come on, people), but I figured --- this was a reasonable and respectful offer, though still a bargain price for the dress, and the seller was free to decline if she felt it was too low. BUT she accepted, so now I get to try this dress I had been mulling for a far lower price.
I think for now I'll put my second new purchase of the year on the back burner --- maybe save that for the fall. I have been thinking about another new Sierra dress, simply because I wear my Iris Blue one so much, but I can let that simmer for the time being. If I have one "new purchase" slot left for this year, I want to fill it with something I'm sure I want.
Meanwhile, as I said, I've listed some other items for sale, chiefly my black linen choir dress, which has never fit that well. I got it out to see if I wanted to wear it on Good Friday, and the answer was: no, I don't. It's just really a hair too small to fit nicely or be quite comfortable, and while I have lost an inch or so here and there in the last year, I obviously haven't lost the right inches in the right places for this dress. I don't wear black that much, but I think I can do better in terms of fit. Fortunately the next occasion when I really have to wear black is at the end of August, so I have time to sort that out. I am kind of watching for secondhand Wool& dresses, because a lot of things do come up in black. Usually I pass right over them, because black, but I am starting to pay a little more attention. I'm not going to pay a ton of money for a black dress, but if I can get a wool dress in presentable condition and the right size, then that would be worth having for those choir occasions. In a pinch I could wear my Audrey, but the heathered fabric isn't really concert black. Though I dunno, looking at photos from Good Friday with the black cardigan, it could work . . . but again, that's not something I have to figure out tonight.
Well, one thing my Lenten penance did not do was make me stop ruminating about clothing, but there it is. Christ is risen, and we all still have to get dressed. Both of these things are true, and here I am, bearing witness to them.