There’s this thought puzzle known as Schrödinger’s cat. It’s based around a ridiculously complex quantum physics paradox, but the basic idea is that, if a cat were in a sealed box with a vial of poison, there is a point of unknown, at which the cat is simultaneously alive and dead, yet neither dead nor alive. When you look into the box, clearly it’s one or the other. But there’s always that moment before you know, where hope remains both alive and dead until that box is opened.
I wonder if this is the same way my fellow vintage huntresses feel – the next most perfect vintage dress is always on our minds, and she both exists and doesn’t exist in the same moment. And the exhilaration is when you sit suspended between those two realities. She could sit just around the corner. Or she could never be. And it’s that dichotomy that keeps us hungrily prowling vintage fairs and antique shops in search of the Next Best Thing. And when I spied this beauty from Simply Vintage, it was one of those days when you open the box and hope springs eternal…
Schrödinger’s cat has far more than nine lives, and far fewer. All of us are unknowing cats, alive and dead at once, and of all the might-have-beens in between, we record only one.
Yoon Ha Lee, Conservation of Shadows
About a week ago I found out that a very large grant we were on pins and needles waiting for wasn’t successful. I went into hiding for a bit and gave myself some much needed wallowing space. Truthfully, the waiting was excruciating. I’m not someone who exists very well in limbo, and just wanted to know. But when I think about it, there’s an odd comfort in not knowing whether that cat is sitting alive in the box. Because although the outcome would still be the same, the day before we found out, hope had permission to exist. There was equal possibility that it was alive and dead, and I didn’t really have to face what the future would hold while reality was in suspension.
Basically, there are millions of moments in our lives – those points before life takes us down some irrevocable path. And those moments get to live in this abstract state until it actually exists in some form. Until someone lives that moment or someone opens the box and observes what’s inside. And before the point where reality collapses into one possibility or the other, it gets to be naively, blissfully, both.
To be honest, the future is a bit uncertain at the moment. But I’m coming to terms with the fact that ignorance may not be bliss. That a year from now, I may look back and realize this was the moment. This was the moment when the next adventure began….
xoxo
Outfit Details:
Dress: Simply Vintage (similar modern or vintage here, here, here & here)
Belt: Alannah Hill (similar here & here)
Necklace: Beleza Vintage (similar here, here & here)
Cuff: Wildfox, via ASOS (similar here & here)
Handbag: Mo-Mo’s Vintage (similar here, here or exact same bag here!)
Shoes: Irregular Choice (similar here, here & here)
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