Coming Home

I am sitting here this morning in a cotton skirt with deep pleats around the hip, a button-down shirt and ballet flats. It is a very classic outfit, in many ways more traditionally classic than I have worn in a long time.  I feel completely at home and "in character" although in some ways this character I am in today may seem to be at odds with the person I may have appeared to be on other days.  We humans are complicated that way.

But back to the outfit.  My skirt is a cotton print on a background of  a deep plum wine color.  In fact if you had a pantone color card you would see that the color of my skirt is Pantone 18-1411 which is, indeed, called plum wine.  There are other colors in the skirt as well, green, yellow, more muted plums and although the skirt has many colors the overall effect is muted.  This may be why I have not worn it much this summer although I used to consider this a summer skirt.  This summer it has felt more like a fall skirt.  Whether this is due to the colors of the skirt and something that has changed in my perception of these colors, or the fact that all my sleeveless summery tops that used to go with this skirt no longer fit, or just the fact that it has been such an unusually hot and humid summer than the entire idea of muted deep colors seems oppressive, is beyond me right now.  I only know that today the skirt is perfect even though summer is far from over.

With this skirt I am wearing a deep plum somewhat fitted shirt with 3/4 sleeves.  The sleeves are my concession to summer and the shirt is only somewhat fitted because I have lost weight.  I have a warm yellow-amber belt and a pair of bronze ballet flats. When I write the colors and look at what I am wearing I can see that my head is heading toward fall even though it is still August and we are still in the midst of summer.  But the nights are growing cooler again, and early mornings in the garden are crisp. Today is cloudy and somewhat cooler and perhaps that too has affected my choices

But the truth is  I am thinking about fall and renewal. Perhaps I am thinking about renewal because I am thinking about how happy I am about the progress on the front yard, which is now on hold for a month while the mason is away.  Or perhaps I am thinking about fall because I bought a pair of boots which it is still far to warm to wear.  Or perhaps autumnal thoughts are only background music and I was actually thinking about this skirt because I have been working on transforming another skirt, one made from the same pattern as this skirt, into something new.  The new skirt in progress is on my other blog, here.  At the moment that seems to be my public frivolous face blog, and this seems to be my self-absorbed inner face.  I am willing to link from here to there, but not at the moment the other way around.  At times this has been different; it may be again.  My blogs and I seem to be in the middle of a dance but we haven't yet figured out the tune.  

Or maybe I am thinking autumnal thoughts because I am thinking about aging and how our lives change, and I am thinking about how we can embrace the changes of life gracefully or we can struggle through them in denial.  But that is really much too weighty a discussion for this frivolous post today.  Maybe it is enough for today just to wear a full cotton skirt and ballet flats, an outfit that embraces the past and the future, that makes concessions to summer but admits that fall is on the way, realizing full well that whatever I wear today has no bearing on how the day will unfold.   Maybe it is enough not to think about what we wear or what we do or how we do it, but just embrace each day and say "This is what I want today" and hope for the best.

Or perhaps I am just ready to metaphorically come home to one of my favorite colors, to a classic shape, to what is tried and true and familiar.