Tossing a coin...
... for Knots in the String.
I was at an impasse on what to write this week.
Should I exercise the grey cells that have been confined for the months of my recuperation after abdominal surgery? Maybe write about funerals, or how we perceive life at certain ages?
Or maybe go Lite? Talk about fashion, or something just as shallow and of such little import. Or is it? Shallow I mean. Surface glister. Food for thought…
Truth? It all comes down to tossing a coin. Heads or tails?
Well, tails won. It’s fashion. But perhaps not as you or the writers of fashion blogs and the influencers perceive. Not the need to rush out and buy the latest retail, or the latest cosmetics. Or worse (in my mind), perpetuating the search for youth by patronising the plastics’ and fillers’ waiting rooms. Clothes are a constant part of every day. Some like them more than others. Some don’t have the option because of the economy and the state of their lives. But just as in the Emperor’s New Clothes, everyone is judged for what they do or don’t wear. Clothing is often an armour against the world’s predations and for time immemorial, clothing has been used to denote status and kind.
Simplistically, what we wear serves two purposes – it’s to cover one’s body (or not), and to wear for a particular lifestyle. For example:
This is me gardening last weekend, and in a total commitment to looking fashionable (here, you may fall around laughing if you like), I’m wearing very old jeans consigned to the gardening apparel drawer, a pale blue windcheater bought for summers on the boat when the wind blows cool, and a weird navy linen apron because agapanthus juice is v. messy. The apron is tied with garden twine! Over the top of everything, I would normally have a purpose-bought gardener’s tool pouch, but with a growling lower back and sore glutes, I wore my back-brace. Very like a corset – fashionable, yes? Then fetching, bright red, gardening gloves so that if I pull them off to answer my phone, I can find them again amongst gardening detritus. And finally, the most elegant thing of all: French garden clogs, given to me by my friend, Willie, with whom I share the passion for gardening. Invariably, I’m covered in dirt, seeds, twigs and fertilizer because I don’t just skirt the edges of our nearly ½ an acre of gardens, I bog right in! It’s one of my happy places.
Then there’s the boat - the gear is always casual and most often has been working the boat for years. The navy top has two buttons sewn over bleach stains. The shorts and polo are 100 years old as is the sunvisor which is literally a part of my body owing to skin cancer.
(Purposely dressed for the sheep yards and paddocks where one gets covered in poo, wee and anything else our breeding ewes might want to share)
(Purposely dressed for ballet)
My lifestyle is dog walking, ballet, writing, gardening, life in and on the ocean, occasional help on the farm, occasional hiking, cooking and stitching and none require dress-ups. No airs and graces, no fresh fashion retail. If the Terrier and I are out, I want to be able to keep up with him and tread in sand, water, mud, gravel – whatever. All the clothing I observe on fashion blogs (even if I adore it, and I often do) would probably not actively cut my mustard.
(Before the opera a few years ago. I may have been in my late late 50’s.)
In my husband’s previous life, part of his job was to attend many first night performances both here and interstate and I would trot along draped in silks and satins – especially in Melbourne, the fashion capital of Australia. Invariably, I used the clothes to hide behind because whilst I loved the performances, front row and handshaking has never been my milieu. Anxiety was everything…
(Attending a theatre performance post-pandemic.)
Perversely, I love dressing to attend a ballet performance now, although I think I’m in the minority of patrons who dress up. Mostly though, daily life means I rarely have to fit into a pre-conceived dress code for anything. It’s an enormous relief.
Don’t get me wrong. Looking good, feeling better has a very important place in life. It can be the difference between confidence and none (take heed, Prue…). Which is why the global programme Look Good Feel Better exists. I worked as the Volunteer Coordinator for the first ten years of the programme in our state, and am fully aware of the power of such things in dire health situations. I will never forget the looks on women’s faces when they had made themselves up with cosmetics donated by the big companies and under expert tuition, learning how to tie a great scarf on the head, or how to wear and style a wig. It was if they had a transfusion of hope - they glowed. Even better, they smiled…
Looking good pays respect to you as an individual. In the case of cancer patients, or indeed any patient, it can often be the difference between having the will to go on and the self-belief that you can go on. You are worth the effort.
Doing:
OMG! Heaving stuff around for the three new garden beds at the cottage. I’m a bit wrecked! I have one bed left to plant out and then all three will be mulched in lucerne hay. I wish I could waft a wand over the beds and have the plants bulked out already but I’m guessing it will be at least a year.
I am encouraging my left brain/balance/vestibular to cope with learning new choreography at ballet. I’m wrecked from that too. My brain has to work harder and when the balance thing kicks in, its as if a fog is lifting. Having no rightside balance isn’t much fun…
I finished Richard Armitage’s audiobook The Cut. A shattering listen/read. If you like psychological thrillers, then this might be for you. It’s not a genre I would normally pick. I read it because I admire Armitage on so many fronts – as a stage, film and TV actor, as a good writer and as a beautiful voice in narration. He’s a very talented, intellectual man.
I’m now listening to Michael Parkinson’s autobiography, narrated by Parky himself. Amazing life - I had no idea that he’d been a newspaper journalist, sports writer and war columnist before he became the best TV interviewer in the world. If you enjoyed him in his prime, you will thoroughly enjoy the audiobook.
And for those of you who have been following The Heron, it’s finished! It’s such a thrill to have pulled it off. There are errors but hopefully unless you know, you’ll never find them. Maybe I’ll frame it and hang it beneath the goldwork piece of Queen Elizabeth II. The needle is now plying three special hearts that have been commissioned.
As I write this, I’m sitting on the couch, leg up and an ice pack on my knee. It’s getting there, I think the n-Stride shot into the joint is beginning to settle to its work. As long as it keeps me mobile, I’m happy to use a quazillion icepacks!!! FYI, I’m wearing faded pale blue ankle-length jeans, a white T-shirt and a navy fitted, long- sleeved T-shirt over the top. Lying on the floor are my favourite navy suede loafers. (Not lug-soled! Never ever in a month of Sundays!!!) Would I pass muster with the fashion bloggers? Probably not…
For those who may be interested, below are the links to the fashion blogs I follow:
All four women have beautiful style and taste. Two regularly shop their closets which seems so sensible in this age of fast fashion and waste, and the same two are not influencers, for which I admire them. Some of the clothing modelled is incredibly expensive, but I’d wear it in a heartbeat if I had the budget and led the kind of life that all four ladies apparently live.
I’m not sure if any of the four bloggers’ lifestyles are as active or dirty as mine; if they are, they hide it extremely well. But in any case what one wears is what suits one and contributes to a good feeling, what is comfortable and what is appropriate for what one might be doing. These days, living in denim day after day, I’m living the most involved, active life I can with my family and the Terrier.
I can however, dream through the glitzy (said with kindness, not sarcasm) life of others.
As in anything, it’s enough…
Song for the week:
This…
So enjoyable to be allowed a glimpse at all the different Prues! And, I might add, even at your most 'casual' I see evidence of lipstick AND eyeliner! I always put mine on too - even in the garden - as I just feel more "together" that way. I think you are rocking that back brace incidentally which I actually thought *was* a very cool belt lol. Love the leopard pumps. You even manage to look elegant amongst the possibility of sheep poo! No small feat. Thanks as always, you got the tempo just right.
P.S. Love Michael Parkinson, I had quite forgotten about him.
You have a way of looking put together in every situation, Prue, and though you write of it often, the anxious you never comes through in photos. Working from home has not done my clothing choices any favors, but I throw a scarf around my neck and an oversized shirt over leggings and call it good enough! Let's trust that the ouchy-achey bits will get themselves sorted out before summer!
Well done on your heron. He's wonderful!