The night we dropped the boxes off at the goodwill donations center we were on our way to dinner at our friend’s house. We dropped them off and drove on without talking, NPR in the background. I stared out at the street lamps, dimly light and passing by, wondering what I should do now. Step one had been to clear out my life of DL junk. And that was done, right? What was step two? Make a list? Quit my job? Empty my savings account and travel the world? Marry a man from Paris with Italian hand made shoes and vacation villa at Lake Como and….I’d gotten off track. Focus.
Our hosts were George and Judy. They are the world’s most beautiful people. Married four years with a magazine worthy house, complete with the granite covered island and pot rack in the kitchen. They were happy and smiley and threw an immaculate pre-holiday party every year.
“Chloe!” Judy opened the door and flung her arms up as she called me. “So glad you could make it.” She grabbed me with the force like an old boyfriend’s father who used to pick me up every time he proffered a hug. “Stanley.” She moved in for the bear hug. I stepped aside and surveyed the décor. The dining room was directly to my left. I think Martha Stewart had been there. There were place cards. I couldn’t remember the last dinner I’d gone to with place cards. The centerpiece was fall: colored leaves, gourds, rust and orange colored mums. “Come in. You’re the last to arrive.” She seemed to want to follow up with, as always, but Judy would never insult a guest; Emily Post would have a fit. The others were standing around the table with wine in their hands. Two other couples and a single woman named Charlotte. Judy said, ”Let’s all sit down and have some hor d'oeuvres”. We followed suit.
Charlotte was seated across from me and to my right. I wondered about her story. I theorized divorce or a long term relationship gone bad. Despite my best efforts the gates of pity opened and the frothy waters of sympathy came pouring out on her behalf. Poor Charlotte. She had to answer Judy’s “seeing anyone lately” question with “a couple of takers but nobody worthy yet.” What courage to sit with all her coupled off friends and be single. I glanced at Stanley and felt a wash of warmth run over me. I was lucky to have a good man attached to my place card. Without him, I would be like Charlotte – a glaring sub-entity squeezed between we thought you had it all, what happened? and don’t feel bad darling, you can sit next to me. But I didn’t have to worry. My relationship entrenched me squarely outside the realm of fret.
“So Chloe, what’ve you been up to?” Judy asked, offering up a plate of miniature delicacies.
“She’s been cleaning out her closet,” Stanley answered for me. “It’s a very intensive project for her.” Judy and Charlotte giggled. The men laughed out loud. I reached immediately for the food and laughed off Stanley’s witty slight. His personality always improved in the company of others. Go figure.
“It has been very intensive,” I said, with a note of repartee. “I had a lot of junk. I wanted to get rid of some of it and start anew. But you know how it is, old habits die hard.” I munched down on a bread like hor d'oeuvre with artichoke paste on it and avoided talking again for a bit. The conversation continued about closets and clothes until it slid organically over to clothes for work and landed permanently on work.
Charlotte was a lawyer. She worked for a small law firm four days a week doing boring car insurance cases but her real passion was working with a non-profit organization that helped the poverty stricken with their legal issues. She worked with them twice a week and it “inspired” her.
“Someday I’d like to be able to work solely for the organization but you don’t make much money there. So for now, I work for both.”
Judy said, “We all have our somedays. I would love to own my own restaurant, instead of working for someone else’s. But that’s not in the cards yet.” We all sighed in near unison. The kind of sigh that all women make when they are racking their brain’s for another common ground topic but need a moment to ricochet glances off the corner’s of the room to pick one.
“Chloe, how about you? What’s your someday?” My someday. The thought rose immediately to meet her question: to be a violinist for the symphony. But under the intense glare of their smiling eyes, I had trouble transferring the thought into words. Did Judy even know I played the violin? She would think it was crazy for a woman she had not known to play any musical instrument at all, to suddenly dream of becoming Itzhak Perlman. Which, let’s be honest, I would never become in a million years but he still comes to mind as the only famous violinist people remember. I didn’t need to be that famous. I just wanted to play for my symphony. The one I kept running day after day but one in which I never had the chance to participate. My internal thoughts remained mute and my response, finally, was “Oh, there’s so many things I can’t begin to list them.” I laughed to make us all more comfortable, so they laughed too.
“But really, if you had to pick one? Is there something you’re passionate about?” Charlotte said.
My words escaped before I had the chance to filter their repercussions through my head, “I was thinking of starting this organization….” I stopped. Did I really just say that out loud? I dreaded what was the immediate and inevitable next question:
“Really! What kind of organization?” The Discount Life. But how to explain that to these women. Judy couldn’t understand, could she? She was a chef at a highly successful restaurant downtown. She was frequently featured in regional magazines as the best thing since sliced bread, literally. Her name had stars attached to it. George worked for Capitol One, doing what, no one really knew. But he got dressed up every day and came home to a beautiful house so you could safely assume it was something good. They were planning a trip to Ireland, she said. “It’ll be absolutely freezing but we’re going anyway.” I had always wanted to go to Ireland. Scotland actually but Ireland would do. And then there was Charlotte, who despite being single, had a house in Westwood; the chic urban neighborhood of Philadelphia, a thriving career and was taking the train down to Washington next month to play part in some lobbyist group that was fighting for better funding for education. Against them, my Discount Life theory seemed feeble. Not only did they not suffer from discount life predicaments, they were all the way life kind of girls. So I said, “I have a couple of kinks to work out before I feel comfortable saying.” They nodded politely and smiled without parting their lips, a mannerism that indicates diminishing interest. They were done with me. My inner most self had escaped discovery yet again.
On the ride home I said, “Why don’t we plan a trip to Ireland?” Stanley raised his eyes and said, “We could. I don’t know that we have the money right now though.” His response ignited a small irritable flame under my skin. He was right, of course. His pragmatics usually were. I was just hoping that he’d join me in a daydream and be excited about the possibility. I worked simultaneously to respond lightly and squash the tiny devil flame that burned within and saying, “Well that’s what planning’s for. We could plan a date in advance, save up and then take a trip.”
“We could.” He focused on his driving, gave me a spare glance before returning his eyes to the road. Squash the flame Chloe. Squash it.
“You don’t really want to go, do you?” I spoke calmly with no venom. Patient.
“I do. I would love to see Ireland. It’s not that. Its just that it seems a little big for our budget right now, that’s all.” Squash, squash.
“But if we made a plan it could be a goal for us. Even if we don’t get there right away. At least it would be in the works. Something to strive for.”
“You’re right,” he said amicably. “I would love to see it. We’ll look into it.” It was here that my flame should’ve gone out like a light. He’d said what I wanted to hear. But the flame simply turned to kindle at his commonsensical response. He had not gone willingly into the night. He’d followed me after I noosed his neck and pulled with all my might. In short, I’d dragged it out of him.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll look into it.” The rest of the drive was docile. I battled inner dialogue, a fight between the emotional, unreasonable woman and the sane woman in me and managed to put the flame out thoroughly. By the time we got home I had forgotten the emotion surrounding the discussion entirely and had gone straight on with thinking about goals and how I had so many I had barely touched. It was classic discount life that I didn’t try. Why?
I thought about Judy. Her career. Her home. Her life. She was running a marathon at Christmas. I had always wanted to run a marathon, had always wanted to be one of those people. I asked her at dinner how she had the time to train with how busy her life was. She said, “When its what you want, you make time for it.” I’d argued that training for a marathon took tons of time. She replied, “Well its not like it happens over night.” Marathons were just that, she’d said, a day by day thing you worked at until one day you had the strength to run the race completely. “You make the time and you work at it a little bit by little bit. Baby steps.” Make time. That’s what I needed to do, set goals and make time for them. Maybe I’d start with a marathon. Maybe I’d start with my own trip to Ireland. “No,” I said out loud. “Scotland.”
Step Two: Establish Goals
1) Run a marathon
2) Go to Scotland
3) Become a chef (I liked to cook, why not?)
4) Become a violinist again
5) Actually pick up the violin, its been so long the case has dust on it
6) Cut Dairy Out of My Diet (it makes my skin so itchy and my stomach, well, we won’t go there)
7) Learn to knit a scarf
8) ………(to be cont’d)
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The Discount Life (Cont'd)
Step One: Clear out Your Life
Cleaning out a woman’s closet is like following Indy into an abandoned cave: You know somewhere in the back there’s treasure but you’re certain to be attacked, maimed and terrorized before you get to it. It’s a daunting task for any explorer. I recommend calling in the troops to bulldoze & stand back up.
I did not, however, heed my own advice in round one. I promised myself I’d be reasonable and extricate half of the afore mentioned ‘discount life’ items from my over grown closet. The shoes cramping the floor seemed a likely place to start; can’t even close the damn door there are so many. So I kneeled before the vast mountain of footwear and began my cleanse.
The gold sandals have to stay. I started a ‘stay’ pile to my left. The red stilettos – Staying. They’re vital to a woman’s sexual security. The black boots are a staple. The other black boots are for going out and feeling powerful. The suede black boots are, well, suede. Valuable. They have to stay. The old tennis shoes can be used for mowing the lawn. The new ones for walking. The running shoes are, of course, for that marathon I’ve planning to run sometime between last Christmas and the day I die. The Birkenstocks. The Birkenstocks are from college and I really didn’t wear them anymore. I suppose I could give them up. I took them gingerly in my hand, inspected them woefully and put them to the right in a goodwill pile. I turned my attention back to the closet and the emerald green flats I’d nearly worn a whole in. Staying. [I looked back at the Birkenstocks] Pause. Turned back to the leopard print flats that always gave my pinky toes blisters. Staying. [Glanced at the Birkenstocks. They really are comfortable.] Pause. Turned back to the Tahari patent leather heeled sandal. – amazing shoes that transform an ordinary Jane into Cindy Crawford. Staying. [ Checked on the Birkenstocks. They look so lonely being the sole item in the goodwill pile.] Pause. Looked back at the closet. [Oh for goodness sake’s I have to keep them.] And just like that the Birkenstocks rejoined their mates in the stay pile.
I checked my watch. It was almost time to meet Mel for dinner. I’d wasted 3 hours on this project and in the end managed to convince myself that every pair of shoes I owned were necessary to my value and my happiness. They say it all starts with changing the thought process. I was half way but I can see now I had given in to habit. DL. I did, however, reorganize all the shoes and put them back neatly into rows in the closet. Organization is progress. I left my cave feeling that Indy would be proud.
At dinner, I bounced my theory off Mel. She agreed that I was, perhaps, onto something. Mel has never had a lot of money and therefore, has always had much more sense then I. She does not own too much. She knows the value of all she has in her life. She’s my got it together friend. And even she could support my theory with her own example of DL behavior.
“Just last week, I told Jack I wanted to go eat at that new Bistro on Kent street. But he said the wait was too long and you didn’t get much food. He said we could get more and faster if we went to Jimmy’s instead. So we did. I got a lot of food for less and it was fast but the whole time I just thought ‘this isn’t very good. I wonder what I would be eating at the Bistro’?”
“Discount Life!” I said. “Agreeing for less then you want because it’s easier than holding out for the real thing.”
“Jack didn’t see it that way though,” Mel said. “He was really happy with tons of mediocre food.”
“Some people are I suppose. It’s just like trash and treasure. What’s discount for you may not be for me. It’s personal.”
“Yeah but mediocre is still mediocre.”
“To you.”
“So how do you decide what’s acceptably discount and what’s not?”
“I don’t know,” I said between a sip of wine and a bite of bruschetta, “I haven’t gotten that far yet. But I did start by clearing my closet of the discount life items.” Which is a misleading statement implying that I actually eliminated some discount life items.
“Did you start with that sweater?”
“No. I started with my shoes.” Half truth- I got no where with my shoes and I know it. But I’m going to let Mel believe that I did so I can make myself feel better. If someone else believes I am the kind of person who is in control of my life, then I’m much more likely to become that person, right? “I did bring one of them to return though. I kept the baby puke yellow one to remind me of my new mission to live an all the way life. A real life. No discounts. ”
“Awesome,” Mel said. “This could be interesting Chloe. You may really be on to something.” She took a bite of bruschetta. “But then you always were the one with all the ideas.”
Right. All the ideas and no follow through. I smiled and wondered what she would think if she knew that I really hadn’t thrown away a single piece of DL loot. I wanted to scream “I’m lying!” but I didn’t. I said, “It’s a work in progress. We’ll see where it takes me” and promised myself that the next time I cleared out my closet I would actually clear out my closet.
Step One Again: Clear Out Your Life AND Be truthful with yourself.
Okay. Here we go again. I sat before my shoes and winced while I created a goodwill pile. Shoes with holes or near holes, shoes that I hadn’t worn in one year (two but who knew that but me), shoes that were impractical, cheap or out of fashion – all had to go. When I had finished I had ten pairs of shoes in the goodwill pile, which out of thirty pairs, isn’t bad for me. The Birkenstocks were among them. I packed them in a box and put it by the front door. Stanley was there to greet me.
“What’s that?” he asked. Stanley. Good old reliable Stanley. Stanley that worked as an accountant, only expended energy enough to be sufficient for the task at hand and never had a superfluous thought out loud.
“It’s a goodwill box. I’m clearing out my closet.” He nodded his head and bent down to kiss my cheek.
“Good for you.” He put his brief case down on the bench in the tiny foyer of our townhouse, hung his trench coat on the hook above it and walked into the kitchen unbuttoning the buttons on his dress shirt.
“I thought it was time to get rid of the stuff I don’t wear. Find some clarity. You know, obliterate the madness.” I stood in the foyer and watched him pour himself his after work drink. This was Stanley.
“Sounds good.” Stanley with the personality of a cardboard box. Stanley that would never leave me, never hurt me and always came home at night and poured himself a glass of brandy in the short glass that wasn’t meant for brandy. Stanley whom I was no longer in love with but had built a life with anyway.
“Did you have a good day?” I asked, teetering in to the kitchen with cheer. One must maintain cheer.
“Yep. It was good.” He smiled a pleasant short smile and passed by me on his way to the couch for some SportsNation. He sat down and said “You?”
“Uh…yeah. It was interesting. I’ve been clearing out my stuff all day. You know how involved that can get for me.” I laughed a little at myself. He nodded and smiled his pleasant smile again. I could have told him about my Discount Life theory then. Could have explained my inner most workings to the man I was living with. Perhaps shared a brandy with him. Maybe had a laugh or two at my own expense. But the feeling washed over me that although he would tolerate that discussion and smile his pleasant smile, he wouldn’t really get it anyway. Things were always kind of black and white for ole’ Stanley. I saved myself the breath and said, “I’m going to go work on the closet some more. You might actually have some space in there when I’m done.” I headed up the stairs and heard him say, “That would be great. Good luck.” This is Stanley.
I let the boxes sit there for three more days. Don’t judge me. I needed time to mourn the loss of my shallow outward security blankets. Stanley patiently walked around the boxes and said little about them. His comments were exactly, ” it doesn’t even look like you cleaned out in here” and “so, is there room for some of my stuff yet?” Which were straight forward and fair comments. He was right. The closet barely looked cleared, which is a strong indication that it was too packed to begin with. And he hadn’t had room in my closet since he moved in. So…never. Poor Stanley.
(cont'd next time- stay tuned for the discovery the DL Anonymous)
Cleaning out a woman’s closet is like following Indy into an abandoned cave: You know somewhere in the back there’s treasure but you’re certain to be attacked, maimed and terrorized before you get to it. It’s a daunting task for any explorer. I recommend calling in the troops to bulldoze & stand back up.
I did not, however, heed my own advice in round one. I promised myself I’d be reasonable and extricate half of the afore mentioned ‘discount life’ items from my over grown closet. The shoes cramping the floor seemed a likely place to start; can’t even close the damn door there are so many. So I kneeled before the vast mountain of footwear and began my cleanse.
The gold sandals have to stay. I started a ‘stay’ pile to my left. The red stilettos – Staying. They’re vital to a woman’s sexual security. The black boots are a staple. The other black boots are for going out and feeling powerful. The suede black boots are, well, suede. Valuable. They have to stay. The old tennis shoes can be used for mowing the lawn. The new ones for walking. The running shoes are, of course, for that marathon I’ve planning to run sometime between last Christmas and the day I die. The Birkenstocks. The Birkenstocks are from college and I really didn’t wear them anymore. I suppose I could give them up. I took them gingerly in my hand, inspected them woefully and put them to the right in a goodwill pile. I turned my attention back to the closet and the emerald green flats I’d nearly worn a whole in. Staying. [I looked back at the Birkenstocks] Pause. Turned back to the leopard print flats that always gave my pinky toes blisters. Staying. [Glanced at the Birkenstocks. They really are comfortable.] Pause. Turned back to the Tahari patent leather heeled sandal. – amazing shoes that transform an ordinary Jane into Cindy Crawford. Staying. [ Checked on the Birkenstocks. They look so lonely being the sole item in the goodwill pile.] Pause. Looked back at the closet. [Oh for goodness sake’s I have to keep them.] And just like that the Birkenstocks rejoined their mates in the stay pile.
I checked my watch. It was almost time to meet Mel for dinner. I’d wasted 3 hours on this project and in the end managed to convince myself that every pair of shoes I owned were necessary to my value and my happiness. They say it all starts with changing the thought process. I was half way but I can see now I had given in to habit. DL. I did, however, reorganize all the shoes and put them back neatly into rows in the closet. Organization is progress. I left my cave feeling that Indy would be proud.
At dinner, I bounced my theory off Mel. She agreed that I was, perhaps, onto something. Mel has never had a lot of money and therefore, has always had much more sense then I. She does not own too much. She knows the value of all she has in her life. She’s my got it together friend. And even she could support my theory with her own example of DL behavior.
“Just last week, I told Jack I wanted to go eat at that new Bistro on Kent street. But he said the wait was too long and you didn’t get much food. He said we could get more and faster if we went to Jimmy’s instead. So we did. I got a lot of food for less and it was fast but the whole time I just thought ‘this isn’t very good. I wonder what I would be eating at the Bistro’?”
“Discount Life!” I said. “Agreeing for less then you want because it’s easier than holding out for the real thing.”
“Jack didn’t see it that way though,” Mel said. “He was really happy with tons of mediocre food.”
“Some people are I suppose. It’s just like trash and treasure. What’s discount for you may not be for me. It’s personal.”
“Yeah but mediocre is still mediocre.”
“To you.”
“So how do you decide what’s acceptably discount and what’s not?”
“I don’t know,” I said between a sip of wine and a bite of bruschetta, “I haven’t gotten that far yet. But I did start by clearing my closet of the discount life items.” Which is a misleading statement implying that I actually eliminated some discount life items.
“Did you start with that sweater?”
“No. I started with my shoes.” Half truth- I got no where with my shoes and I know it. But I’m going to let Mel believe that I did so I can make myself feel better. If someone else believes I am the kind of person who is in control of my life, then I’m much more likely to become that person, right? “I did bring one of them to return though. I kept the baby puke yellow one to remind me of my new mission to live an all the way life. A real life. No discounts. ”
“Awesome,” Mel said. “This could be interesting Chloe. You may really be on to something.” She took a bite of bruschetta. “But then you always were the one with all the ideas.”
Right. All the ideas and no follow through. I smiled and wondered what she would think if she knew that I really hadn’t thrown away a single piece of DL loot. I wanted to scream “I’m lying!” but I didn’t. I said, “It’s a work in progress. We’ll see where it takes me” and promised myself that the next time I cleared out my closet I would actually clear out my closet.
Step One Again: Clear Out Your Life AND Be truthful with yourself.
Okay. Here we go again. I sat before my shoes and winced while I created a goodwill pile. Shoes with holes or near holes, shoes that I hadn’t worn in one year (two but who knew that but me), shoes that were impractical, cheap or out of fashion – all had to go. When I had finished I had ten pairs of shoes in the goodwill pile, which out of thirty pairs, isn’t bad for me. The Birkenstocks were among them. I packed them in a box and put it by the front door. Stanley was there to greet me.
“What’s that?” he asked. Stanley. Good old reliable Stanley. Stanley that worked as an accountant, only expended energy enough to be sufficient for the task at hand and never had a superfluous thought out loud.
“It’s a goodwill box. I’m clearing out my closet.” He nodded his head and bent down to kiss my cheek.
“Good for you.” He put his brief case down on the bench in the tiny foyer of our townhouse, hung his trench coat on the hook above it and walked into the kitchen unbuttoning the buttons on his dress shirt.
“I thought it was time to get rid of the stuff I don’t wear. Find some clarity. You know, obliterate the madness.” I stood in the foyer and watched him pour himself his after work drink. This was Stanley.
“Sounds good.” Stanley with the personality of a cardboard box. Stanley that would never leave me, never hurt me and always came home at night and poured himself a glass of brandy in the short glass that wasn’t meant for brandy. Stanley whom I was no longer in love with but had built a life with anyway.
“Did you have a good day?” I asked, teetering in to the kitchen with cheer. One must maintain cheer.
“Yep. It was good.” He smiled a pleasant short smile and passed by me on his way to the couch for some SportsNation. He sat down and said “You?”
“Uh…yeah. It was interesting. I’ve been clearing out my stuff all day. You know how involved that can get for me.” I laughed a little at myself. He nodded and smiled his pleasant smile again. I could have told him about my Discount Life theory then. Could have explained my inner most workings to the man I was living with. Perhaps shared a brandy with him. Maybe had a laugh or two at my own expense. But the feeling washed over me that although he would tolerate that discussion and smile his pleasant smile, he wouldn’t really get it anyway. Things were always kind of black and white for ole’ Stanley. I saved myself the breath and said, “I’m going to go work on the closet some more. You might actually have some space in there when I’m done.” I headed up the stairs and heard him say, “That would be great. Good luck.” This is Stanley.
I let the boxes sit there for three more days. Don’t judge me. I needed time to mourn the loss of my shallow outward security blankets. Stanley patiently walked around the boxes and said little about them. His comments were exactly, ” it doesn’t even look like you cleaned out in here” and “so, is there room for some of my stuff yet?” Which were straight forward and fair comments. He was right. The closet barely looked cleared, which is a strong indication that it was too packed to begin with. And he hadn’t had room in my closet since he moved in. So…never. Poor Stanley.
(cont'd next time- stay tuned for the discovery the DL Anonymous)
Nakedness
There’s a brilliance in nakedness, wouldn’t you agree? A peacefulness in being fully exposed. No pretenses here. What you see is what you get.
We’re taught to cover up like we’re afraid of our own shadow. Like God didn’t make us this way in the first place. In my younger years, if I’m even old enough to have a younger years, I was a rabbit – quick to undress, rapid to redress, moving as fast as possible so as not to be seen. Not by you, not by him, not by me. Those curves are an embarrassment, that recusant swell a statement that sways and speaks for me. What does it say? That I am a woman? No worse, that I am wanton. If you put on unshapely pants it goes away. If you wear flats instead of heels, you barely sway.
Nakedness is less a bother these days. Every sway, every swing, is not a rebellious thrust toward something disgusting. There can be an elegance to it – the languid softness of a Rembrandt lady, lounging for her lover on a red velvet duvet. There’s a peace in having the folds of your body absorbed. Rembrandt never painted perfection, after all. He painted beauty. Better to embrace your humanity then to shred yourself in front of a mirror. A mirror is a terrible companion for nakedness. Sensuality is a state of being; the physical reflection in a plate of glass a mere morsel of what exists in the mind.
Nakedness has a ubiquitous fullness about it. In your birthday suit there’s no impressing by putting on. Your hips alone are your gift, the round fecundity God gave you your natural accessory. The Renaissance has nay a collared woman for a reason: true beauty lies underneath the surface. You’re beautiful. You’re squishy bits have been painted for centuries. Consider them are art.
This nascent nakedness is a rebirth – Venus emerges from the shell a woman. A secret just for you and the ones you choose. Not for the world like a painting in a museum, but you can smile knowingly at the next one you see. You know that look. Try nakedness if you dare. Put away your mirror and put on some silk. You are a Rembrandt after all. The languid lady lounging for her lover. Even if its just for you.
-inspired by the paintings ‘The Birth of Venus’, ‘Young Naked Ladies Sleeping’, and the Umstead Spa where Christopher the masseuse makes you feel beautiful
We’re taught to cover up like we’re afraid of our own shadow. Like God didn’t make us this way in the first place. In my younger years, if I’m even old enough to have a younger years, I was a rabbit – quick to undress, rapid to redress, moving as fast as possible so as not to be seen. Not by you, not by him, not by me. Those curves are an embarrassment, that recusant swell a statement that sways and speaks for me. What does it say? That I am a woman? No worse, that I am wanton. If you put on unshapely pants it goes away. If you wear flats instead of heels, you barely sway.
Nakedness is less a bother these days. Every sway, every swing, is not a rebellious thrust toward something disgusting. There can be an elegance to it – the languid softness of a Rembrandt lady, lounging for her lover on a red velvet duvet. There’s a peace in having the folds of your body absorbed. Rembrandt never painted perfection, after all. He painted beauty. Better to embrace your humanity then to shred yourself in front of a mirror. A mirror is a terrible companion for nakedness. Sensuality is a state of being; the physical reflection in a plate of glass a mere morsel of what exists in the mind.
Nakedness has a ubiquitous fullness about it. In your birthday suit there’s no impressing by putting on. Your hips alone are your gift, the round fecundity God gave you your natural accessory. The Renaissance has nay a collared woman for a reason: true beauty lies underneath the surface. You’re beautiful. You’re squishy bits have been painted for centuries. Consider them are art.
This nascent nakedness is a rebirth – Venus emerges from the shell a woman. A secret just for you and the ones you choose. Not for the world like a painting in a museum, but you can smile knowingly at the next one you see. You know that look. Try nakedness if you dare. Put away your mirror and put on some silk. You are a Rembrandt after all. The languid lady lounging for her lover. Even if its just for you.
-inspired by the paintings ‘The Birth of Venus’, ‘Young Naked Ladies Sleeping’, and the Umstead Spa where Christopher the masseuse makes you feel beautiful
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
The Discount Life (a truthful excerpt of fiction)
Hi. My name is Chloe and I am a Discount Life addict. I’ve been “real” for about one year now. The DLA is much akin to AA, except instead of downing alcohol we swallow sales, half truths and second bests. It’s like when you want the Lapis blue cashmere sweater but you buy the baby puke yellow and construction zone orange instead because they were on sale and you could get two for the price of one. Sounds great on the surface. Two sweaters! But let’s be serious. You’ll never wear baby puke yellow and construction zone orange because they don’t really look good on anybody. Which is why they were on sale in the first place. But in the moment you are able to convince yourself that perhaps neon orange is your color and you take them home and fold them up neatly and put them next to the countless other sweaters you’ve purchased at half price. Then you close the closet door, crawl into bed and dream about the Lapis blue sweater you didn’t end up getting. That, in a nut shell, is classic Discount Life behavior.
It happens all the time. You know what you want but its hard or expensive or just a little too long term to seem achievable. So instead, you choose the path of least resistance and happily, or blissfully in denial, take what has simply arrived in your path. Like the would be doctor who ends up a nurse. Or the would be violinist, who ends up a receptionist at the symphony under the guise, of course, that she is just doing it to work herself through to her big dream. Which is a half truth. Because while the latter is a familiar declaration, she hasn’t really worked on achieving that goal in six years. Six. At this point, being a receptionist is less a means of getting by and quickly becoming a career. And in six years she’s hardly let herself notice. Discount Life.
Until recently, I was addicted to and unaware of the Discount Life. I shopped at discount stores. I lived in a discount house. I had a discount job and I had a series of discount mates. When you add it all up, the truth is that living the discount life means only being half of what you could be if you’d really given yourself the chance to go all the way. No wonder we all feel so empty. We’re only half full.
But instead of letting this get the better of me, I chose to see my half full cup as an opportunity. What if we stopped living like we only deserved half of what we were worth? What if we scrapped expectations, preconceived notions and the versions of our lives that were handed to us and lived the all the way kind of life? So I started The Discount Life Anonymous and found out that tons of people felt the same way I did and now we’re all living fabulously. Okay well, maybe not entirely fabulously. Jack and Mel are still a bit wobbly on their feet and that lady from Little Rock probably should be in AA before she can get anywhere with the DLA program. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from step one: inspiration.
There I sat, in front of my closet, holding my baby puke yellow cashmere sweater from the Barney’s Outlet, thinking how sad it was that I had purchased this sweater on impulse instead of waiting until next week when I had the money to buy the Lapis blue sweater I really wanted. I bought the baby puke yellow one, on sale, from an outlet which, by definition, is the always on sale division of my favorite store. How lame. I gazed up at the hangers jutting from the tiny metal pole that spanned my closet. They were jammed packed with items just like this one. And it hit me. I had practically purchased my whole wardrobe at a discount. That sounds impressive until you take into account that 50% of my 50% off items were unwanted, un-wearable fragments I had purchased simply because I couldn’t stand the wait for something better. Under the allusive veil of security and the pleasure of the phrase “On Sale”, I immediately gratified myself with booty I truly didn’t need or feel good about but purchased anyway because it was there and seemed better than going without. And now I had a closet overflowing with ripped designer labels I’d sewn together by hand and oddly colored vetements that made my closet resemble a squashed bag of Skittles someone opened and left dangling from a hanger.
The Discount Life discovery left me with more questions than answers. I started adding up the cost of the last five items I purchased ‘on sale’ and quickly deduced I had paid $50 more for the five items I had yet to wear than if I’d just bought the Lapis sweater at full price. In a perfect world, the Lapis sweater would be on sale and I would buy it alone. Nothing wrong with that – because that’s what I really wanted. But that’s not what I did.
I needed to whittle down the meaningless swag and find clarity. I had an image of myself clearing out my closet. It played out like the part in a movie where the actress finds herself and Carly Simon plays in the background. Small clips with great music that spanned about a year’s worth of growth in two minutes and when it was over I would look like Julia Roberts and have Richard Gear by my side. My whole life would be happy and meaningful. And the simple first step was to clear out the closet. I’m going to chance an aside here and tell you, what’s important to remember about those two minute movie segments is that even they took months and months to make. And that’s where my story begins.
Step One: Clear out Your Life...
(wanna read more...check it out next week for the continuation)
CB
It happens all the time. You know what you want but its hard or expensive or just a little too long term to seem achievable. So instead, you choose the path of least resistance and happily, or blissfully in denial, take what has simply arrived in your path. Like the would be doctor who ends up a nurse. Or the would be violinist, who ends up a receptionist at the symphony under the guise, of course, that she is just doing it to work herself through to her big dream. Which is a half truth. Because while the latter is a familiar declaration, she hasn’t really worked on achieving that goal in six years. Six. At this point, being a receptionist is less a means of getting by and quickly becoming a career. And in six years she’s hardly let herself notice. Discount Life.
Until recently, I was addicted to and unaware of the Discount Life. I shopped at discount stores. I lived in a discount house. I had a discount job and I had a series of discount mates. When you add it all up, the truth is that living the discount life means only being half of what you could be if you’d really given yourself the chance to go all the way. No wonder we all feel so empty. We’re only half full.
But instead of letting this get the better of me, I chose to see my half full cup as an opportunity. What if we stopped living like we only deserved half of what we were worth? What if we scrapped expectations, preconceived notions and the versions of our lives that were handed to us and lived the all the way kind of life? So I started The Discount Life Anonymous and found out that tons of people felt the same way I did and now we’re all living fabulously. Okay well, maybe not entirely fabulously. Jack and Mel are still a bit wobbly on their feet and that lady from Little Rock probably should be in AA before she can get anywhere with the DLA program. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from step one: inspiration.
There I sat, in front of my closet, holding my baby puke yellow cashmere sweater from the Barney’s Outlet, thinking how sad it was that I had purchased this sweater on impulse instead of waiting until next week when I had the money to buy the Lapis blue sweater I really wanted. I bought the baby puke yellow one, on sale, from an outlet which, by definition, is the always on sale division of my favorite store. How lame. I gazed up at the hangers jutting from the tiny metal pole that spanned my closet. They were jammed packed with items just like this one. And it hit me. I had practically purchased my whole wardrobe at a discount. That sounds impressive until you take into account that 50% of my 50% off items were unwanted, un-wearable fragments I had purchased simply because I couldn’t stand the wait for something better. Under the allusive veil of security and the pleasure of the phrase “On Sale”, I immediately gratified myself with booty I truly didn’t need or feel good about but purchased anyway because it was there and seemed better than going without. And now I had a closet overflowing with ripped designer labels I’d sewn together by hand and oddly colored vetements that made my closet resemble a squashed bag of Skittles someone opened and left dangling from a hanger.
The Discount Life discovery left me with more questions than answers. I started adding up the cost of the last five items I purchased ‘on sale’ and quickly deduced I had paid $50 more for the five items I had yet to wear than if I’d just bought the Lapis sweater at full price. In a perfect world, the Lapis sweater would be on sale and I would buy it alone. Nothing wrong with that – because that’s what I really wanted. But that’s not what I did.
I needed to whittle down the meaningless swag and find clarity. I had an image of myself clearing out my closet. It played out like the part in a movie where the actress finds herself and Carly Simon plays in the background. Small clips with great music that spanned about a year’s worth of growth in two minutes and when it was over I would look like Julia Roberts and have Richard Gear by my side. My whole life would be happy and meaningful. And the simple first step was to clear out the closet. I’m going to chance an aside here and tell you, what’s important to remember about those two minute movie segments is that even they took months and months to make. And that’s where my story begins.
Step One: Clear out Your Life...
(wanna read more...check it out next week for the continuation)
CB
Update - The Couch
Ps: The couch has changed. It is leather. And it sticks to your legs if you don't put a blanket down first. It's still a great couch though.
CBI
CBI
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
