During most of the past five weeks I stopped thinking about clothes. I stopped opening emails from online retailers. I stopped reading fashion and style blogs in particular, although I actually just spent precious little time in blogland.
This general sartorial stepping-back was not completely due to the chaos around me. It is not that I am not interested in clothes, jewelry, fashion and style, but increasingly I am interested in just going my own way. I observe but sometimes chose not to participate. Style is only a part of life, and I felt it was becoming too much of an obligation and an ordeal. I learned a lot but I had reached a crossroads.
I came to Knoxville without a summer wardrobe. I had a few tees. A skirt. A dress. Shoes. Otherwise not much. I knew I was moving. I survived last summer with a few throwaway pieces which barely survived the summer. Since I have arrived, the whole process of looking, trying-on, buying and wearing has been enlightening and has really helped me to refine the process of how I see myself and what I want to wear. It sounds like such a simple thing; but it wasn't. There was a mall near me before, but it did not have the kind of selection I have here. Selection required travel to a more distant mall. It required time away from home. That was something I really didn't have. It is much easier to say "just go" and "You have to live your life" than it is to find your way through the minefield of need and anger that is the mind of the husband who is falling into the bottomless pit of dementia.
I am not interested in writing a "what I bought" blog. I am not interested in writing a style blog, even though style is one of my interests. More exactly sometimes I think anti-style is one of my interests as well. Although I am interested in the whole fashion scenario, I am specifically interested in what it is about what women wear that makes them happy, what feels good to them, and how that makes them feel about the way they look. And what I am not interested in is the whole idea of dressing to look younger, richer, thinner, sexier.... not that I wouldn't fall prey to those pursuits on occasion. I too am a product of my culture and my upbringing.
Besides what I have learned is that I am not really an adventuresome dresser. I find coming up with new things to wear more of an ordeal than a joy. I don't particularly want to try new things on a daily basis. I certainly don't want to spend the time fussing with photographs, at least not most of the time. And I have a few rules, a few tried and true things that work for me. The list is still expanding and evolving. It may or may not be the same next month. I am really just at the beginning.
One of the things I have learned is that I like flats. I like being able to move quickly and with intent. Sneakers and flip flops have also become staples of my wardrobe. I even wear my sneakers with skirts, which is not really all that shocking except that I really haven't done it before. I was sad when I tossed out my Chuck Taylor's last year, but any shoe that makes your feet hurt for two days after wearing them is not worth keeping. I never wore them with skirts. I kept the plum SeaVees, which are so comfortable I wonder why I didn't wear them more. I didn't wear sneakers with skirts until I bought the navy Supergas last fall. Somehow the more open neck of the shoe works better with skirts and cropped pants. I liked them so much I bought the white version this spring. I was also looking for gray, but fell in love with the plaid sneaks instead. They seem to go with everything. They make me smile. And four pairs of sneakers seems like more than enough, a bit profligate really.
But of course I have more sneakers. There are also the athletic shoes. I started wearing the black Merrell barefoot models last summer. I promptly tossed all the more traditionally engineered versions. For the first time I found athletic shoes I could wear more than a few hours without wanting to rip them off my feet. I always marvelled at people who could spend the day in sneakers until I bought these. This spring, when I was walking and starting yoga and really thinking about gait and the mechanics of walking I got the gray toe-sneaks. I thought I would hate them. I don't. Rather than feeling constrained, I feel liberated, sure-footed, impish even. I won't go back.
