My husband, Mr. Dressed, is a champion gift giver. Truth be told, he stresses about it before every birthday and holiday, but the man has skills. He will occasionally pull something from my wishlist, but more often than not he will brave the cyber streets and find something I never even knew I needed. He’s amazing at pushing me out of my comfort zone or finding a stunning vintage piece that reminds me of just how well he knows me.
I grew up in New England, where differentiated seasons abound. This means we plowed through 2 ft snow drifts in winter, melted in the summer heat, and watched the world bloom around us in spring. But, my favorite season was always fall. One of my most vivid childhood memories was always of that first crisp fall weekend, where my family and I would make a trip to the apple orchards to find the most perfect pie-worthy apples to commemorate autumn.
Sometimes, I swear I see the world around me like a kind of Rorschach test. You know – the psychological ink blot tests that ask you to describe what you see in a series of swirls and smudges? We do this all the time – people seeing faces in a piece of burnt toast, getting frightened by a pile of clothes out of the corner of your eye that looks like an intruder, or laying on your back in the middle of a field, staring up at the clouds and suddenly seeing creatures created from cumulous before your eyes.
I think it’s always important to be proud of the things you do well – either from an inherent skill or years of practice, there is no harm in patting yourself on the back. It’s just as important to acknowledge the things you do not excel at. Come on, we all have them. The things that, no matter how hard we try or how many books we read or YouTube videos we memorize, it’s just never gonna happen.
A huge part of the last few months of our lives has been in redefinition. Redefining Normal. Redefining a successful day at work. Redefining a Friday Night. And, most recently: redefining a reason for having a dance party. Reason being: I simply needed it. And I have Trunk of Dresses and this spectacular hand painted vintage skirt to thank for a moment of pure, indescribable joy as I twirled and jived and forgot the world for a moment or two in my garden…
I’ve noticed an interesting trend lately in the wake of the coronavirus. Now that we’re rounding the corner on a month+ of social distancing (I just did the math and realized I’ve hit 6 weeks of not leaving my house. Holy isolation Batman!), I think we’re all feeling a different kind of stress. The first part was rife with panic – we all went into crisis mode, trying to find our footing in these new circumstances. But, now there’s a new kind of fear: coping with the fact that this is our new normal and likely will be for awhile…
Like most vintage-loving ladies, I have a sewing and tailoring pile that goes up to the sky. If you’ve been collecting vintage for a certain number of years, you come to learn that with great beauty comes great responsibility: a vintage wardrobe requires a lot of care. Ripped seams, unravelling hems. Learning to sew was definitely one of the best skills I ever gained in terms of managing the garments I love so much. But, over time that skill can become a curse, only to turn around one day to find I’ve collected pieces that “just need a little nip…
I don’t know about the rest of you, but days have certainly lost all meaning. I wake up and it takes a good 5 minutes to even know what day it is. It’s funny to think about this same time last year. The buds were just starting to break into flowers. The end of the semester was in sight, with thoughts of summertime looming. Nowadays, I’ve got lots of buds blooming in my sewing room, but not a lot of places to wear them. The end of the semester can’t come fast enough, but mostly because I’m exhausted at feeling…
There are a LOT of different coping mechanisms we all use to get through a crisis. For me, my go-to place for breathing out my problems has been the seaside. Lucky for me, I’ve always lived by the coast (occupational hazard), which has made it very convenient when I need to throw my problems out to sea.
We have all experienced personal tragedy in our lives. Moments that throw our world upside down and off track, where we are just scrambling to find a foothold. And the weirdest thing that happens, is lifting my head from the weight of personal sorrow to find the world kept turning. I’m surprised every time. To see it didn’t pause for my grief, or wait for me to get back in my feet. It continued to spin as if this huge, tragic thing never happened.