She’s back!

Oh my.  It’s been such a week.   Daniel was in the hospital unexpectedly from Saturday afternoon to Tuesday evening (he’s fine now — he has a chronic condition that he hasn’t managed very aggressively.  Nothing like a 4-day hospital stay to make one pay attention).   In the background work stress was hitting new  heights.

I woke up today to cold and grey weather and a general feeling of overwhelmed-ness.  I wanted someone new to come in and take over this agonizing work project.  Then I decided that I had to be that new person, so I gathered my weaponry:

And my weapons worked!  I had a much, much better day.  Perhaps it’s the placebo effect, but I became the person who powered through the day in 3+ inch heels (they are more formidable than they look in the photo) and red lipstick.  I am astonished.  Dressing myself into a better frame of mind works — it’s much better than hiding in a cozy sweater and jeans, which is what I did yesterday.   I also continued to be pleased that my closet seems to have all the answers I am seeking.  Or… most of the answers.  Those answers didn’t stop me from buying two pairs of sandals at the MyHabit.com supersale yesterday (hurry — see if there’s anything in your size left!), and this delightful tshirt (in black) with the remainder of my JCrew gift certificate.  This is stress buying, and I know it, and I’m not going to worry about it.

I wrote recently that I haven’t been saving money by spending so much less of it on clothes.  I’ve shifted to other things.  I realize that what I’m buying now, in part because it’s been a stressful season (run of the mill stress –work, life, whatever, but still stress), are daily comforts or promises of perfection: lip pencil, red lipsticks (yes, plural — still searching for the perfect one), coconut face cream, good chocolate, creamy face cleansers, a Clarisonic brush (still testing it), better haircuts and color, yoga workshops.  I’m saying no (ish) to more clothes but not to any other impulse that might make me feel better.

I know I’ve written this repeatedly, but I am still loving this new approach to clothes — maybe that’s why I keep writing about it.  I had a long and indulgent hair color appointment today, and I spent my time in the chair annotating the JCrew catalog: “lots of monochrome combinations — texture!” and “animal print as a neutral with otherwise clashing colors” and “neutrals combined with neutrals, but not with color.”  I didn’t want to buy anything, except that t-shirt, but I wanted to see how things worked.  I still haven’t worn my red sweater and red skirt combination…but it’s there if I want to.

I am back.  I am back to being happy enough to blog, and it’s such a relief.

And my crush Ines is back, too, because I can’t resist.  This photo is the one I saw in a magazine weeks ago that really crystalized how I want to dress.  Look how simple her outfit is.  I mean, I’m sure those trousers cost a mint, but there’s nothing outrageous or hard to wear here, and nothing that’s aggressively trendy, either.  She’s just so on top of it.  It’s not what she wears, it’s how she wears it.  Everyone has what to wear — we just need to figure out our own “how.”

 

My fashion crush

Sigh…  On a very good day, I have her hair cut.  She even makes under-eye circles and lines look fabulous.  I’m for that!!

Photo from Easy Fashion Paris,

The scale, or a meditation on four pounds

About a month ago, I bought a scale.

I have been scale-less for more than two decades.  When I was a regular gym-goer, I weighed myself once a week or more, but I’ve not been to the gym in years.  I have enjoyed the very long scale-less interval.  I was borderline bulimic in high school and early college.  Over several years,  I had freed myself from the tyranny of the number on the scale, and the toxic moralization of food and eating (“I was so bad today, I had ice cream… I’m so good, I’m only eating salad.”  What I eat doesn’t make me good or bad.  What you eat, dear reader, doesn’t make you good or bad, either.)   I “let” myself eat whatever I wanted, and discovered that I only wanted a few bites of ice cream, most of the time.  I also did a lot of yoga and realized what kinds of foods make me feel good and what kinds make me feel rotten, and I noticed what I ate when I was stressed and exhausted.  And I walked and moved because I like to do that, not because I felt compelled to burn calories.

My weight, when I checked, was rock-steady throughout my 30s , whether I was exercising a lot or a little, or eating in ways that made me feel great or made me feel mediocre.

And then I turned 40.  I went for my annual checkup last year, and my weight was my steady weight + 2.  I didn’t think anything about it.  Then my clothes started getting a little snug, and I didn’t like that at all, so I tweaked what I ate (a lot less cheese, a bit less bread) and things were fine.  This year, at my annual physical, my weight was steady weight + 4.  I see a pattern, and I don’t like it.  I don’t want to gain 20 pounds over this decade.

Why not?  I feel it would be unhealthy, even though that’s probably not true.  Mainly, I am very attached to the body I have.  I don’t want my body to change as I age.  I know it will, but I keep thinking I can outsmart it.  Some of the changes I fear are loss of function, of range of motion, of stamina, endurance, flexibility, ease in joints, resilience, balance (that’s a long list!).  I don’t want any of that to go.  I want to be doing headstands when I’m 80, walking a mile and half to synagogue when I’m 95, and moving around like I damn well want to until I die.  One of my grandmothers has lost her strength, and her entire world has shrunk depressingly.  She is not at all herself, and it started when her body stopped allowing her to do everyday things.  The changing number on the scale foretells, to me, a series of changes that I don’t want and may not be able to control.

That’s one reason I don’t want to gain weight.  There are other, less noble reasons.  I’m vain about my body.  All through high school and college, when being intelligent and unabashed about it was a huge liability (yes, even in college), I was determined to confound the “smart OR pretty” or “smart OR sexy” or “smart OR popular” dichotomy that was forced on me by being thin and showing off my nice legs at every opportunity.  And then later, when I stopped dieting and weighing and worrying and stayed the same weight or even a bit less, I felt magical.  I had figured it out!  I had won!  I was doing the Right Thing and I was being rewarded!

For several weeks after I got the scale, I was too busy to think about it.  I mostly ignored it.  I’d weigh myself, see steady weight + 3, and then not think more about it.  It was the holidays, I was eating huge meals.  But lately, I’m seeing steady weight +4 or even 5.  I had honestly thought that by maintaining my good attitude, by not caring so much, by being rather dismissive of this new instrument in my bathroom I would be…rewarded is the only word for it.  I would be rewarded for my continued good attitude, and the reward would be that 2 pounds would disappear, and I could forget the whole thing.  I would be back in control.

That hasn’t happened, and now my good attitude is wavering.  I think “I’d like to lose five pounds.”  I hate that thought.  I have thought it too much.  I hate being weight-aware.  But my body is changing.  My metabolism is slowing down, and that has consequences, and I don’t like some of them.

There are so many disclaimers I feel the need to express.  First, I know that four pounds is nothing.  Four pounds is ridiculous.  It’s symbolic, symbolic of aging and losing control and not being young and lithe and attractive in the way that young and lithe people are attractive.  It’s the four pounds today that leads to being weak and helpless in 40 years — that’s what upsets me.  The four pounds of the apocalypse.

Second, whatever I feel about the number on the scale, I am far from the poisonous miasma of body hatred.  Whatever its patterns of strength and softness, my body is strong and healthy and functional.  I can do all kinds of awesome and pleasure-giving things with it.  Having that ability is more important than any number and it always will be.  If, or when, I lose those abilities, I will struggle.  I am strongly attached to this way of being in the world.  Losing it will cause enormous suffering.  I don’t think I can non-attach from it.  That’s a Buddhist-tinged detour — what I’m saying now is that I have a deep love for the body I have, and it’s hard won, and I hope it’s permanent.

So, what to do with my scale, and my four pounds, and my fears?  I could dump the scale entirely, and decide that it’s not worth even a minute of my time to worry about this.  But I think the snake is in the garden, I’ve eaten from the apple.  Losing the scale wouldn’t mean regaining my feeling of control.  I could make further adjustments in how I eat.  For example, I could drink less alcohol.  That would probably do the trick.  But I am not sure I want to.  I could use a little less olive oil, trim my handfuls of nuts a bit, be a little more careful than I am now.  Again, I hate that internal vigilance, though.  It eats energy and it’s hard to keep in check — it wants to eat more energy, and get louder and louder.  I could exercise more.  Ah yes.  I’ve been trying to exercise more for the last six months.  But, still, I could do a bit more here and there.

So I will.  A little less of some things, a little more of others, and I’ll see if the number on the scale goes where I want it to (steady + 2 would be fine. I’d make that the new steady).  But I think I need some other measuring stick, too.  I need a more intrinsically rewarding goal.  I need to feel stronger, or have more endurance, or energy.  That, actually, should be where my concentration and energy and efforts go — what will make me feel better?  A particular number doesn’t make me feel better physically.  Drinking less would, although the adjustment period might be a pain.  I self medicate, and use alcohol to ease the transition from work to home, to ease the piano wire nerves I have at 6pm when the second shift starts.  But what if I meditated instead, or insisted on an inalienable right to 15 minutes of something — the exercise bike, more yoga?  That’s much better.  I like having that goal, of thinking about getting stronger or fitter or anything else-r as long as its not thinner or lighter, not for its own sake.

Okay!  I wrote my way to a solution.  I like this.  It may be a little harder to write my way into a justification of the $150 Clarisonic face brush I bought on Thursday, but that’s another post.

Lessons from my closet

Today I am thankful for this really comfortable cardigan that I’m wearing.  It’s been nice to wear all day.

I have been having a grand time not buying new clothes for a while.  I confess that “not buying new clothes” is not at all accurate.  I have purchased two pairs and jeans and a pair of flats with a gift certificate (the trouser jeans were a failure, despite my ordering two different sizes to make sure I got the right one.  I didn’t — they are too big.  Trouser jeans are ALWAYS too big for me.  I’ve consigned four pairs so far.  I buy them just a bit snug, and somehow cutting off the tags causes them to grow a couple of sizes, so that they are a mess by the time I walk out the door the morning of the first wearing).  I traded consignment store credit for a new skirt.  I bought a dress while on a business trip.

That said, I feel like I’m not buying new clothes (self-delusion can be useful).  And this allows me to think more about what I want to look like, rather than what I want to buy.  It’s crystallized my style preferences and helped me feel like I’m on top of fashion, rather than racing to catch up with it.  It’s delightful to go through magazines and pull out pictures of what I want to buy, and then realize after a few moments’ thought that I have that already.  Most recently, I realized that I have a pleated midi-skirt that I bought six years ago.  I have these items because I like them — I bought them well before they were trendy.   I think I’m dressing better than I have in a long time.   Here’s what I’ve recognized:

I like clothes that are a backdrop for great accessories —  bright colored beads or big earrings or a big ring.  That generally means basic silhouettes and solid colors.

I’m paying more attention to coats and bags — to what I wear when most people see me.  This is new for me.  I like bags a lot, but never understood coats as fashion items.  Now I kind of get it.  I’m never going to buy a pretty but impractical coat, but I am more likely to mix up my coats and wear different ones during the week, weather permitting.  I understand now that my coat is an important part of getting dressed.

I dislike some of my old standbys.  Relying on a black pencil skirt, black tights, and a bright sweater feels boring now.  I have much better options when I don’t feel like making any effort (a variety of knit dresses).

I can do without trousers (check back with me when it’s freezing).

Color counts, for me, almost as an accessory.  I like to wear one strong color with neutrals.  The color can come from tights, a skirt, a necklace.

It’s a wonderful feeling to think that when a hole opens in my wardrobe, such as last week when a much-worn necklace broke irreparably, I have something to fill it already.  There was a kind of relief in realizing that.  I like having what I need.  My new clothes feel like one glass of wine too many, almost.

Fashion is more interesting when I look at it with an eye towards matching what I see to what I have, rather than thinking I lack something.  It’s like finding an answer, and I LOVE finding the answer.

Not shopping (okay, telling myself I’m not shopping) makes me feel like I’m stylish because of what I’m choosing, because of how I decide to combine pieces and make things distinctive, rather than because I’m wearing something right out of the J Crew catalog.  What’s funny is that I’ve never been one to buy the season’s trendy item.  If anything, I’m probably following trends more now, because they are helping me navigate my closet and make decisions.

What I haven’t done is save money.  I have found plenty of directions for my extra cash.  Some of them are noble — lots of unglamorous house stuff.  Some of them are foolish (100 — so it feels like — dribbles of $25 or $30).  But my bank account isn’t more robust.  Nevertheless, I hope I can keep up this mindset during the late winter sales, which are usually so tempting (although I expect to be strapped financially) and into next spring.

As I scroll through all this, I wonder if the difference is all in my head.  I have a different attitude.  I may not look one whit different to observers.  But who cares? In my head is the only place I live.

Poem for Wednesday

Isn’t this lovely?

Red Slippers
by Amy Lowell
Red slippers in a shop-window; and outside in the street, flaws of gray, windy sleet! Behind the polished glass the slippers hang in long threads of red, festooning from the ceiling like stalactites of blood, flooding the eyes of passers-by with dripping color, jamming their crimson reflections against the windows of cabs and tram-cars, screaming their claret and salmon into the teeth of the sleet, plopping their little round maroon lights upon the tops of umbrellas. The row of white, sparkling shop-fronts is gashed and bleeding, it bleeds red slippers. They spout under the electric light, fluid and fluctuating, a hot rain—and freeze again to red slippers, myriadly multiplied in the mirror side of the window. They balance upon arched insteps like springing bridges of crimson lacquer; they swing up over curved heels like whirling tanagers sucked in a wind-pocket; they flatten out, heelless, like July ponds, flared and burnished by red rockets. Snap, snap, they are cracker sparks of scarlet in the white, monotonous block of shops. They plunge the clangor of billions of vermilion trumpets into the crowd outside, and echo in faint rose over the pavement. People hurry by, for these are only shoes, and in a window farther down is a big lotus bud of cardboard, whose petals open every few minutes and reveal a wax doll, with staring bead eyes and flaxen hair, lolling awkwardly in its flower chair. One has often seen shoes, but whoever saw a cardboard lotus bud before? The flaws of gray, windy sleet beat on the shop-window where there are only red slippers.