lay days, II

A couple weeks ago, yesterday, I made a trip to the bookstore. I had been given some vouchers for my birthday, and I relished the joy of going out to a real shop again, touching real books (in these times, some of you may shudder at this). 

I've been reading e-books for a while even before COVID-19 pushed us indoors, because I felt it would be less wasteful to accumulate fewer physical books, some of which I may never read again. My visit to the bookstore was the first in nearly a year. As I drifted through the bookstore, weighing books in my hand, running them over the paper, thumbing the edges and bindings, examining the type, gazing at the covers, my senses became overwhelmed. For a moment, I found it hard to focus on words, plot, topics, etc, and it took a while to focus. 

Several titles I wanted were not in stock. I ended up buying a copy of Isabel Wilkerson's Caste, Sigrid Nunez's The Last of Her Kind, Zadie Smith's Intimations, and the latest copy of The Gentlewoman magazine (more out of habit than anything as the fashion industry is not a source of inspiration these days). I contemplated buying books I had already read, feeling a desire to collect. But I held back. Maybe next time. 

Going out was also a chance to dress up. I wore a long-sleeved blouse from Doen, which I found secondhand on Noihsaf Bazaar. Doen is very frilly and romantic, and I am not big on frills normally. But amid a pandemic and a reckoning over race and inequality, perhaps I yearned for a bit of romance. In any case, it was a surprisingly practical and easy blouse to wear, despite the billowing sleeves; I barely noticed them, which, in my book is always a good thing in clothes. 

I wore the blouse with light cotton trousers from Matter (also secondhand), which are easily the most comfortable trousers I own. I wore jewellery - a bracelet, my gold wedding band, another ring with an aquamarine, a jade pendant that was a wedding gift from my aunt. I savoured these details like a good, warm meal. 

I even went shopping. I went into COS, my old weakness, and immediately closed in on a pair of off-white denim jeans, and tried them on. The fit was perfect. The fabric was perfect. I hurriedly took them off and left as quick as I could before I caved to the temptation of buying them. You would think it would have been an easy (or easier) decision, after all the headlines and stories about the havoc mass market fashion has wreaked on the world. But it was still a struggle. The seductive allure of the "perfect outfit", the dream version of a more stylish me - the pull is powerful, even though we have bigger problems. Or because of. 

A few days later, I was a video conference call, and a colleague complimented me on my blouse. After the meeting, I examined the blouse. It's not really a blouse; in fact it was almost the opposite of the Doen blouse. Instead of floaty cotton, it was a sturdy lightweight cotton canvas. Instead of billowing curves, it has boxy clean lines. Instead of tiny buttons down the front that were just a little fussy to fasten, it pulls over the head with little fuss. 

I bought it from MHL years ago, when it was on sale. Amid COVID-19 and a homebound life, I've found myself reaching for it often - comfortable for lounging around all day, charming neck detail to keep things interesting. There is weathered comfort to the fabric, but it still retains a crispness that lifts the corners of a day in which I feel myself slumping. 

New things, old things. Something soft, something hard(er). And on the world goes. 

Hope everyone is keeping well.