why the blazer?

Ok Covid Lady, you are challenging us to rethink our way of being. Good for you! It was high time. 

Seriously. People, how much longer can we keep up this frenetic pace? 

I just read in the Boston Globe that maybe cities are not the greatest place to live after all.

That's a tough one. I grew up in cities, and travel to cities when I want to go somewhere on vacation, because I live in the country. I love walking in a city, and all the cultural offerings of cities, not to mention all the random stuff that one sees, just sitting on a park bench or at an outdoor cafe. I will never forget, just to name one random sighting, back in Amsterdam, a great city to people watch, but also to savor all the ways people travel on two wheels, an Irish setter sitting upright in a front basket of a bicycle pedaled by a man behind him. I wondered how the human could see behind the head of his dog!

During this moment of isolation and confinement at home, I am ever so grateful that I live in the country. We can walk as much as we want, and we can drive to other places to walk. We do not have lines going into supermarkets. Things are pretty chill for the most part. I had trouble finding seeds for the garden actually. That's fitting. 

I can talk to my neighbors outside their homes when I pass by. That has led to some lovely moments of socializing, which I savor and which have made me appreciate more and more the neighborhood where I live. 

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This period of low consumerism has made me reassess my proclivity to spend money on things I really do not need. My daily trip to the closet makes me face my overabundance of clothes. And that is only the beginning. How much air travel can this planet endure? How much road travel? It's so lovely that animals have regained "droit de cité" quite literally. 

Before it all went into shut down mode, I bought a grey jacket at the local Talbot's, literally on the last day that they were open before the big lockdown. I felt sorry for the salesperson who looked super stressed out. At least, that was my excuse at the time. 

It's so strange to dress up for almost no one. My students see my head mostly, and maybe, if they are at all interested, they take a closer look at what I am wearing. 

Jackets will transition me into "old" age which I put in quotes because I don't quite know when that will begin. Sometimes it feels like it already has. The body certainly is sending a message. When the monthly paycheck ceases, a year from now, that time will mark yet another milestone in my ascent to old age. I'm glad to be ready with those jackets waiting in the closet. They make me feel like I need to accomplish something today. They are the antithesis of sweatpants. 

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I have been riding our free bus to work mostly because it's there, it's almost empty, and I want to keep it going. Taking selfies with my eyes directed sideways has become yetvanother "hobby" of mine. 

That face says a lot though, like, WTF is going on? And what will happen when all this is over? Will we go back to our old ways, I certainly hope not. Will we wear masks in crowded public places? Already mask wearing is beginning to feel normal. 

Fortunately the blooms in and around town are a beautiful distraction from the ugliness of the politics surrounding Ms. Covid and who is responsible for it. I name her female, because it's so much easier to blame a woman, doesn't it? 

In the meantime, here's to the beauty of spring everywhere and anywhere that you can find it. Including in the city. 

                                

The power of an audience

This message harkens back to the original idea for this blog: things that endure.

An audience MUST endure in these troubled times. I watch late tv hosts struggling to keep their shows funny, smart and entertaining from their homes sans audience, and, honestly, they are indeed... struggling.

Stephen Colbert admitted to Conan O'Brien that the kind of work he does depends on an audience.

The kind of work that I do, teaching a foreign language, also requires "an audience." I play back the recording from a recent Zoom session, and I notice how much I am contorting my face in order to elicit the interest of my students, when the rest of my body cannot be used (yes, I could stand full body in front of the computer, wear a mike, go high tech, but it would require a great deal of effort).

At least, I have an audience. I can't imagine recording lectures from my study, with a cat, maybe, sleeping near me, providing a sign of life. At least I am still in front of students, as they say these days, "synchronously."

A friend posted on his FB page a photograph of his wife taking a photograph of the full moon. I liked the photo so much, that I asked him if he could send it to me so that I could print it and put it on my wall. He first sent me a photo that did not have his wife in it. It wasn't the same photograph. It felt empty. The presence of the person -- the audience -- made all the difference. I hesitated about asking him again, but we are living in strange times, so, if there ever was a time to "share" it would be this one. He did send me the photograph with his wife in the end. The one with the audience.

I am fortunate in these unfortunate times (bad pun, I know) to have students with whom I share a moment of learning. To paraphrase the great Woody Guthrie, literally from London to Berkeley, and from Mississauga (Ontario) to Mexico City, we meet up four times a week to learn the intricacies of French grammar. 

Thank you, young audience, for existing and giving me a reason to raise an imaginary mug, la tasse, in an effort to pass it virtually, to another student, who then must replace the noun with a pronoun (la). The best I can hope for is that a.  they understood and b. I managed to be somewhat entertaining.

Traveling in time with objects

Memento Mori

In these troubled times when we cannot travel

our objects

that have traveled with us

can trigger pleasant memories

of other places in better times.

The backpack for instance

that traversed the Alps 

from Lyon to Milan to Rome to Milan to Lyon again.

The denim culottes

(purchased on eBay,

signifying more stories

that their current owner

will never know)

have walked up to Edinburgh castle

on one of the shortest days of the year.

The leather jacket

purchased with a rip in the back

was reserved for the L train to DeKalb Avenue.

Proust said it best:

When we can't travel in space,

With the aid of memory

We can travel in time,

And, lord knows,

that trip can unfold a richness to the senses

that the original trip never achieved. 

    

Trapped?

The little office is now a place to work, alone, in a college building among college buildings where janitors shuffle around emptying garbage cans, polishing door handles, keeping things as clean as they can. 

I go to this little office mainly to use the wifi. We all have to Zoom these days, teach "remotely" as they say, and it gets me out of the house. Six miles of distance between home, where people also have to use the (low speed)  wifi, and high speed internet with no one around. 

The clothes I wear are old. Now that shopping is out of the question, I "shop" inside my own closet. The pop of fuchsia announces spring, and the grey sweater reminds me that I must be careful to dress warmly in these Northern New England regions where snow remains in the forecast until early May.

Why is shopping out of the question? Why did I write that? Because this is a moment when we are being forced to face who we are with what we are not able or allowed to do. We are not able to go shopping, which makes me face the importance of that "ritual" (it is a modern day ritual in so far as we live in consumer driven culture, God is inside the store, or maybe just a simple spirit). Since I cannot go into the stores, look at the colors, feel the fabrics, stand in front of a mirror with a dress in front of me, then I will go shopping inside my own closet, stand in front of my own mirror, and try to find the little spirit at home. 

We are learning, at last, come on people, didn't you read Barthes, Bourdieu, Baudrillard, or, simply, Karl Marx, that we are a fragile society that depends on the emptiness of investments, meaning the reassurance that the future will always be better -- not even as good as but better  -- than the present. We have been living on a bet. We are currently, suddenly, losing the bet. We must face what we have, and, sadly, for so many, what they don't have, which is now a job, a paycheck, a way to buy food. (For the moment, I am one of the lucky ones, I am not facing that harsh reality). 

Meanwhile, back in the little office, wires are all over the place. We live in a wired world, now more than ever. Maybe I should face the clutter rather than stare out the window. Maybe I am trying to stay happy rather than face the mess. 

oh boy...

Hello world, what is happening?

As we all settle in, buckle down and isolate, with suddenly, more time on our hands, I post another "retro" photo, this time of a cocooning outfit, which, honestly, is perhaps the best way to dress these days. Late winter and early spring in New Hampshire are still pretty cold. Pairing a velvet Theory dress (found at a local consignment shop) and an oversize wool Eileen Fisher sweater (same source) with bright purple leggings from American Apparel (oh dear, how I do  miss that label) triggers a memory of  my 90s loose, comfy clothing. There was a mail order catalogue, and here I am searching for the name, googling away, and stumbling upon this NYT magazine article. Speaking of nostalgia. They sure don't write articles this long anymore, so thoroughly written and researched, because people used to spend their Sundays reading the Sunday paper, from end to end. And then we could talk to each other and have the same frame of reference, "did you see in last Sunday's New York Times' magazine...?" Nowadays, the New York Times publishes a great deal of fluff.

Anyway. It wasn't J.Crew, although I remember ordering my first work blazer from them, and feeling so professional and ready to show up for work. No, this was a more casual brand, all cotton and comfortable. Tweeds. There it is! I remembered! I remember when the catalogue arrived in the mail, I would look forward to leafing through it, over and over and over again.

That sweater looks a lot like the one from Eileen Fisher. There is a direct line from Tweeds to Eileen Fisher, although the latter is a lot more expensive, and the fabric lasts longer and is less sporty. I loved the oversized pants and sweaters. I remember a mustard yellow V-neck sweater that I had ordered from them and wore all the time. Mustard is back, maybe I had forgotten that that color was very 90s. I don't really think of that decade as having a particular style or color to set it apart from other decades. 

And now I see that the brand is returning? What? I open their website where there are three items, and they are out of stock. Somebody must have bought the domain name. It has to be a scam. Besides, you can bring a name back, but you can't bring the entire era associated with it. 

Happy cocooning everybody. Hang in there. 

Oscars' Night in Vermont

For the first time ever, I attended an Oscars' party. This one is hosted by my favorite consignment store in White River Junction, Revolution. I actually bought the jacket there, a thick wool black and white polka dotted number with a Lord and Taylor tag. The dress came from the online store, Poshmark, which, like eBay, sells everything under the sun. The necklace is a vintage piece I found in New York City, the pin was a gift from my brother (I think), and the shoes are Fluevog, which I bought new but on sale. Ah, yes, the purse came from a little shop in Paris, new, alas. The earrings are also new, but handmade by a local jeweler.

It is odd that we need an Oscar party in order to pull out of the closet things that we don't normally wear. When Revolution is ready with its own photos, I will link their page to mine. Meanwhile, words to describe: loads of long sequined gowns, perhaps not worn since prom or that wedding in which somebody was a maid of honor. I didn't have to buy a new (used) dress for this occasion. I could have worn something from my closet. But I understood that Oscars night means shiny, razzle dazzle, fun, sexy (!) and none of my long dresses really express all of the above. So I went for short and a little shiny.

The takeaway from the evening was that once in a while we need a bit of fun, and most important, we need to pull some things out of our closets and drawers that we never dare to wear otherwise.

Secondhand

Today, in my local paper, there is a review of a new book simply titled Secondhand, all about the life cycle of clothes and objects on this planet. A bit of optimism in an otherwise devastating culture of mass production, mass consumption and waste. Why optimism? Because there are places on this earth, according to the book, where the locals make it their life's work to recycle: cars, clothes, televisions. 

Dress made from recycled saris (made from...??), purchased at Revolution, White River Junction, VT

Apple computers is a bad guy in the book, and rightly so. What a waste of phones that they are responsible for given that they make it impossible to recycle or to replace a part or two. 

Second hand clothes receive attention as well, with a focus on what happens AFTER Goodwill. 

The book also points out that many commercial town centers these days are filled with second hand stores. That was certainly the case where I traveled last, in Glasgow and Manchester, UK. The High Streets have more charity shops than new retail clothing shops. One can get all analytical and sad, and think of that new ratio as a sign that we are living in a post-industrial world.

  

I am especially reliant on second hand clothes, especially when I travel. The coat on the left still had its tags at Housing Works in New York City. The cardigan on the right came from a second hand shop in Hanover, New Hampshire. 

I also buy second hand clothes during my travels. I pack lightly in order to make room in my suitcase (and in my wardrobe) for a local acquisition or two. I have yet to wear the colorful dress that I picked up in Glasgow at a vintage store run by a French woman as it turned out (see previous post). That will be for my next post. Or for Valentine's Day. Or for both. 

(I ended wearing the Glasgow dress in my office during the confinement)