As the weather cools, my mojo returns. I wrote 6 000 words last night. This morning it reads like 6000 words written by a sleepy person who can’t quite get to the point, but I shall edit then rewrite and slowly something marvellous may creep in.
Tremendous interview on ecology and interconnectedness with the poet WS Merwin in Guernica:
My generation grew up, or most of us thought we grew up… as freaks, because we grew up into a world where most of the writers and artists and the people who were interested in the arts weren’t interested in the birds and the bees at all. And those who are biologists and botanical and ornithological friends never read a book. We reached the age of maturity, whatever that is, assuming the world was like that. And suddenly you realize it wasn’t so, that there were quite a few contemporaries who felt the same way we did about everything being connected. I don’t think the other point of view makes any sense, except economically. If you want to say “increase” and “multiply” and “have dominion” and you’ve “got a right” to do this and all that, ok. But I think that’s suicide. Whatever you do to the world around you, you’re doing to yourself. I don’t mean that in any particular spiritual so-called way. I mean, actually. I mean if the guys in the Northwest who want to continue cutting down old-growth trees do it, the day will come when there aren’t any old-growth trees to cut down. And then what do they do? They say, Well, they have to do it because of their jobs. Well, there won’t be any jobs because there won’t be any trees to cut.
Went off to eat soberversary cake (well, dozens of tiny iced cupcakes) with a friend who is three years sober, a happy and relaxed evening. About 35 of us there from all over the mountain valleys and up from the coast. Three years ago, this was somebody who didn’t have a friend in the world and her family had cut off all contact. A miracle amidst so many miracles.
My lovely and savvy friend D has been attending New York Fashion Week She sends me rapturous accounts of why she loves designer Marc Jacobs to death, his ’70s revival of soft lavender fedoras and high-waisted pants and peppy brogues, all swish and sultry atttitude. Designer Anna Sui did a take on the Russian ballet styles of Diaghilev, metallic brocades and woodblack geometrics. Lace, chiffon, the new metallics, Grecian fabric drops, dazzling Halston retro.
Reading her shorthand on trend, I sit in my deeply aged denims and faded unchic sweater enjoying this glamour from a distance. I have always enjoyed design and once wrote fashion copy myself. D ate her chic micro greens with no hint of dressing at Kenmare near the Bowery, got a smile from Michael Douglas, shared a low-foam cappuccino with Anna Wintour on a club sofa in the Bowery Lobby, danced up a storm at the Rodarte after-party in the great glittering ballroom of the Jane Hotel, nibbled on an Atkins-friendly Thai Kobu beef salad at Indochine. Both D and Anne Hathaway had their hair done at Marie Robinson Salon and that was an oasis of calm off Fifth Avenue. Window boxes of white tulips, trees barely fuzzed with green, the city buzzing with pre-spring euphoria. Forever fabulous, absurd, extravagant New York.
Glad that your mojo has returned, at least in number of words. I am not into fashion myself. Mostly jeans and tee shirts or flannel shirts in the winter. But I do have nice clothes. I just would rather not have to wear them. Comfort is now the main thing.
It is indeed amazing to witness a persons life change so dramatically through attending A.A. meetings and continued sobriety. My homegroup is coming up on 3 years in existance. There is a supportive, deep abiding acceptance that we have for each other. I’ve found the richness and depth in the continuum more so than the aha moments.
Enjoyed reading the NY fashion adventures of D. Reading a week of heady, exhilarating down the fashion hole moments, make distracting fluff compared to ongoing crisis ridden, ousted dictators.
I have great respect for those who refuse to tow the fashion line. I read this recently of Helena Bonham Carter:
When explaining her eccentric fashion choices on the red carpet at the Screen Actors Guild Awards, Helena Bonham Carter quipped: “I’m here because I’m supposed to act well, not dress well.” Carter responded with surprise to the writer’s praise of her red-carpet style: “That’s so refreshing from a journalist, because I’m in the stocks perpetually here: ‘What is she wearing now?’ ‘How dare she?’ Like, criminal acts.”
But she enjoys the outrage.
“Now I feel like I have a reputation to keep,” she said. “I have a responsibility now to dress badly, so it’s kind of liberating.”
I was at fashion week too, through your great descriptions. I enjoyed that. How wonderful the miracles that happen when we wake up and are present. I’m happy for both your friends, the extravagant NY fashion week visitor but even more so for the 3 year old sober alcoholic. Oh happy day!
My idea of fashion is comfort, but in soft lavender…YES.