Golden-hour light blooming from my (not very clean) kitchen window last night after supper --- a marvelous apparition and visitation of some natural grace. I posted this photograph on Instagram last night, because I thought it was so miraculous, but this morning it's still miraculous, so here it is again.
From late spring, as the days lengthen out, into the autumn as they begin to shrink again into themselves, I love the evening light in the kitchen. The kitchen is on the northwest side of the house, which sits at a cant on the lot*, not facing squarely into the sun in either direction. The angle means that the southeast side does get full sun in the mornings. Our bedroom is very bright early in the day, as is the Artgirl's room right above us. But in the afternoons, the westerly-facing rooms get only a slant of light (to borrow from Emily Dickinson). In the summertime, this is a mercy. The kitchen gets hot with cooking, but not nearly as hot as it would if it were flooded with sun. Instead we get beautiful spills of light and shadow on the walls, and a lovely glow from our chosen paint color (Benjamin Moore's Linen White, about which I will never stop raving).
*ETA: Actually, it's the street itself, which technically runs north-south, that's canted across the trajectory of the sun. The house sits square on its lot, but the lot, like the street, is at this angle where the sunrise is to the left of me and behind me, as I sit on the front porch looking out at the street, and the sunset is to my right and far in front of me, and all day long the sun is traveling diagonally over the house. If that makes sense.
Anyway.
Here's the end of the kitchen with the table, taken just before I caught that light bloom at the window:
Again, even in a heat wave, I love the quiet glow of the summer evenings.
On today:
*abbreviated dog walks and some house-manners training (because we have to do something, and it's really got to be mostly indoors)
*work on two essays for next week
*water the garden and all plant containers
*probably hang my hand laundry out --- though we are supposed to get thunderstorms at some point in the next 24 hours
*consider what's for dinner: I have another large-ish squash from the garden that will probably form the core of whatever plan I make, plus a number of yellow and red grape tomatoes and, of course, endless peppers.
In other news, the TXgirl is applying to graduate school --- at the university where she currently works as admin for the English and philosophy departments. As an employee, she can get a master's degree for free, and there she is, so why not, she thought. She had actually begun an MA in medieval studies at a neighboring university in 2019, but then Covid happened, and so did some health challenges of her own. She had walked away from that program --- which wasn't really delivering what she had hoped it would anyway --- but now she has credits to transfer. Her new university (also her undergraduate alma mater) will accept up to nine transfer credits, but she had done two classes there for cross-registration credit for her original MA program, so that's six more credits that should count, giving her almost half the required credits for the degree she's seeking, in English this time. She should --- she hopes --- be able to recycle her original thesis idea, rooted in a particular piece of medieval literature but encompassing concerns in history and art history as well.
Anyway, one thing I did yesterday was give her personal statement a couple of read-throughs. She only just the other day decided to apply for the fall, so is banging her application together in record time. I am excited for her --- the time seems right, and she's in the perfect position to begin a rather slow-motion process while she works full-time. As far ahead as she already is, she should still finish in roughly the standard amount of time, even taking only one class per semester. It's too good a deal to pass up, and I'm glad she's jumping on it.
So . . .
Wearing today (another day of near-triple-digit heat):
*Wool& Brooklyn dress (S/Long) in Beetroot, bought November 2023, last worn June 16. Wears in 2025: 8
*Secondhand Xero Z-Trek sandals, year 1 of wear
Yesterday I was all about the linen --- and it was still hot. There's just no getting around the upper 90s Farenheit. Nothing makes you actually cool except air conditioning. Anyway, back in lightweight wool today. I wore this dress's green twin in Houston in July two years ago and didn't die, so I imagine I'll be fine in this dress today.
These Brooklyns truly are favorite summer dresses, anyway. They are very lightweight and flowy, even if they are knits and don't float away from my skin the way linen does. And I just love the style, which makes me feel instantly pretty and put-together: the graceful crossover bodice (improved, in my view, by my strategic insertion of a stitch for a little modesty and security), the flare of the skirt. I can wear this dress to a wedding or a cocktail party; I can wear this dress to knock around town in a pair of sandals.
As always, I've taken shots of various angles. Side angles are always the potential worst: that's when I see my physical imperfections most on display. The angles I hate are the ones I need to take, to normalize for myself --- and indeed, I hate myself a lot less at those angles than I used to, because I am accustomed to them by now. We are old friends, my worst angles and I. See how I smile at them?
Meanwhile, I'm also always going for contrapposto in the composition of these photographs. It was a value in classical and Renaissance art, and it's a value in photographs you take of yourself in the bathroom mirror, too: some kind of S-curve, however subtle, to your pose, so that your body makes a kind of triangle, with your head, your hip, and your feet (or one foot, anyway) as the three points --- a triangle, not a straight line. All this means is that you shift your weight to one foot, rather than standing squarely, head-on, confronting your image in the mirror as an enemy.
I mean, I didn't do that in the bottom photo. I am standing relatively squarely, because sometimes I do stand like that. And it's okay, but I think the top photos, where I am rather self-consciously doing the S-curve thing, are better composed. Ergo, they wind up being better photos of me. For what that's worth.
Day 2 hair still enjoying the intense humidity. It's evaporated now, but when I got up, at a quarter to seven this morning, all our windows were fogged with condensation. Even "relatively low humidity" in these parts is still . . . a lot of humidity.
I have made another Poshmark sale --- the green twill Gap shorts that I've had in my closet for the last two years finally got snapped up. I sold them for cheap (but then, I bought them for cheap in the thrift store to begin with), so I won't have racked up much credit, but something is better than nothing. I should go in and re-share all my current listings today, so they won't languish totally unseen.
And of course my novena intentions continue, including an urgent intention for today. Still praying both the Novena to the Sacred Heart, which ends tomorrow, and the Novena to Bl. Carlo Acutis, for my friend L. and her unborn twins, especially Twin A.