(Note: for my handful of dedicated male readers, this blog post is going to be laden with accessory concerns and other general girlishness. I recommend you check back soon for my next running or baseball or meaning-of-life-related post. This is going to bore you silly.)
Anyway, wardrobe concerns are stressful for me. My office is professional in nature but on the days I'm not in hearings or meetings, the dress code is pretty comfy. No jeans per se, but definitely nothing a person has to worry about. Unless, of course, you are me. I blame my mother. I don't think she has ever left the house not looking beautiful (which isn't difficult for her), she just always looks lovely and stylish and put-together. I assume there is a Southern element to this, too, as I do think we Southern women tend to value our appearance to "society" (or, in my case, the high-steppin' crowd of downtown St. Paul, Minnesota) and just generally shudder at the thought of venturing outside without, gasp, mascara. Yes, I realize I sound ridiculous.
I settled on a black tunic and leggings and heels. Nothing mindblowing. But, as I mentioned earlier, my disgust for winter led me to dig around in all jewelry nooks and crannies for something that could liven up such a funereal get-up. I settled on the necklace/earrings below, which I'd never worn before, and, as you can tell by the fish face that adjoins many of my head-tilted-to-the-side ponderings, I was rather half-hearted in my confidence over the choice:
Note the quizzical does-this-bloom-and-pearl-combo-look-ridiculous-and-kinda-Victorian-in-a-not-awesome-way expression.
My suspicions were confirmed when a coworker said, "wow, Rachel, you look so theatrical today!" Yikes. I can't say I was looking to inject drama into the halls of state government with the chosen ensemble. But I can work with the theatre theme. I got a couple compliments in the skyway, mostly from women over 70 wearing bright jumpsuits, which further proved my coworker's point. This was not a necklace for novices. This was a necklace for women seeking to be centerstage. Better to just embrace that than be encumbered by it.
I spent the rest of the day not thinking of or being bothered by my necklace. It began to grow on me, when I'd catch it in the mirror, and I rather liked it by the time I got home. I hadn't really thought of it again until thumbing through my phone's photos, looking for something I snapped a couple weeks ago, and came across the picture above. How silly my momentary obsessions!
Sometimes my appearance trips me up, as I'm sure it does all women. And unlike most women, I have the added burden (benefit) of having lost a large amount of weight a few years ago and I'm still trying to figure out what beauty means to me. I was smart, and not much else, for so long, it's hard for me to grapple with the somewhat shocking idea that I can also be pretty somedays. Nothing traffic-stopping. Just a typical "pretty," that doesn't get in the way of being labeled smart, funny, productive, whathaveyou.
It struck me, while thinking about the necklace, of my literary reference for beauty, Anne from Anne of Green Gables. At one point, Philippa describes Anne as a quiet beauty, someone who's just fairly average 9 days out of 10, nothing to get inspired by or worked up over. But on that 10th day, she is fantastic. Theatrical, maybe. I always thought that was the perfect kind of pretty, to have your appearance fail to register as anything beyond average for the bulk of one's life, but to have these special, deliberate, marvelous 1-day-out-of-10 moments when the sun hit you at an angle everyone appreciated.
So, I've decided the necklace inspired one of those days. It was a 1-day-in-10, because the little old ladies called me "precious" and my coworker said "wow."
So the quizzical expression above will henceforth be replaced by a 1-day-in-10 smile. I did always love the stage.
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