Some Woman

I pulled a dress out of the back of a closet recently, a dress which I had purchased and worn - a lot! - 26 years ago. I know the age of the dress because it coincides with the birth of my son, and I've never been able to part with it, even though its oversize shape and very long length became dated, (think Diane Keaton in "Baby Boom") thus relegating the dress to the back of the closet. And now, due to the changing winds of fashion and time, the dress seemed possible again and I welcomed it back to the fold.

Since the designer of this dress, Joan Vass, had been so influential to my thinking about how designers should approach dressing busy working women, I decided to Google her, only to learn that Ms. Vass had died earlier this year at the age of 85. From the Times' obituary comes a statement of her fresh approach to design, one which would become commonplace a few decades later, but was so radical in the 70's. " When everyone was wearing Pucci’s psychedelic prints, she wore black. In her collections, she favored classic shapes, and repeated them frequently. “If you like them, why shouldn’t you be able to go back to a store to replace them, so we make everything forever,” she said in 1979 in The Washington Post."

From what I read, I think I would have like her, though her tongue sounds wicked. From what I am wearing today, I know I certainly like her aesthetic and approach. To be committed to a unique vision outside the norm of fashion is a hard road for a designer, and yet so many women have no interest in trend, just in looking and feeling fabulous. Thanks, Joan Vass, for paving the way.

Skinny Jeans

Most women have them in our closets: our "fat" clothes and our "skinny" clothes. You know, clothes which have been purchased before and after a diet, before and after weight loss or gain. If you are like me, you have a fondness for the skinny clothes, and a reluctant acknowledgment of the others.

As a generally slender woman, it has been a while since I have had to reach to the back of the closet and pull out those looser clothes. Since becoming single, I have adopted a more rigorous exercise schedule, and often have been too stressed to eat, consequently staying on my thinner side. But this year the exercise program has gone to hell, and I am eating more. Consequently, whammo!, an extra 7 pounds is lying squarely, or rather roundly, around my midsection, making my skinny jeans uncomfortable and my body-image confidence a bit shaky.

This comes at a time when my business is growing its offering of clothing which I think of as fashion for women who may have lost their waistlines but not their sense of style. It comes at a time when I am in the final year of my 50's, and my metabolism continues to slow. And it comes at a time when I am more keenly aware than ever of how skewed the fashion world is to young women, vastly ignoring the needs of my contemporaries for whom skinny jeans and towering heels are not an option.

Last weekend I was part of a group of 7 women, all in our 50's, who carravaned to the outlet store of a brand catering to us. In a short period of time, thousands of dollars were spent because we found great-looking clothes which celebrated us, who we really are, lumps, bumps, height differences, weight differences, and accomplishments.

My skinny jeans are going to the back of the closet for now. Maybe they will have to stay there forever; that is to be seen. What is forever, though, is the consciousness that neither weight gain nor aging should have to mean the demise of style.

Are You Ready For A Thing Called Love?

Since I have sometimes mused within these posts about dating in my 50's, it is interesting ( at least to me and perhaps to you) to talk now about love. Why? Because as much as I hoped I might fall in love again someday, hoped I might meet someone who tickled my fancy, moved me to my bones, and with whom I wanted to share this time in my life, I thought that if it happened, it would be a long time from now. And it is not a long time from now. It is now. I have fallen in love.

I have dated a lot, learning a lot in the process while I have grown used to being single, considering meeting men a job I have needed to undertake in order to understand who and what I was looking for, understand how I am with men and what kind of men bring out the best in me, what kind of men I am attracted to and not. I have had wonderful times and wretched times, met men who sound like I have made them up (the sex-obsessed Zen priest? Really?) and men I wished liked me more.

And now I have met and fallen in love with a wonderful man, a man with whom I am at the beginning stages of knowing. Falling in love in my 50's is so different from falling in love in my 20's. We both know so much more, have histories which are longer and more complicated, know ourselves better than either of us could have all those years ago. One of the things I know, and which he and I have acknowledged, is that this wonderful experience is now, that it might last and it might not. That the potential for pain is not reason to avoid succumbing to the joy. That we have rich lives independent of one another and that building a relationship is complicated, scary, time-consuming, distracting, delicious, and oh so worth it.

I wasn't ready a year or two or ten ago. But I am ready for this thing called love now. Sing it, Bonnie.

It's Only A Car

When I learned yesterday that the engine of my car was destroyed and thus I would need to say goodbye to my Audi TT, I was flooded with a number of emotions ranging from annoyance to loss, panic to sadness, memory to reflection.  I was really struck by my own reaction and, in my usual way, spent the evening trying to understand what gives.  And I think I have a clue.

Yesterday marked the end of a chapter for me and the beginning of another one.  Both chapters have to do with the end of the era of being married and identifying as such. When I first got my racy little sports car, it was step #1 in declaring my desire for independence. I called it my midlife crisis car, and it was truly symbolic for me.  In many ways, that little car acted as home for me, as a safe haven of Lisa when all else was crumbling around me: my move from Seattle, my loss of a job, my kids leaving the nest, my marriage ending. So losing this car seems to mark an end of this era of beginning of change - at a time when I no longer need the symbol of independence as real change is happening.

Interestingly,earlier in the day, prior to learning that my car was truly dead and not worth reviving, I had finally begun the process that will ultimately lead to the splitting of property between my husband of 30+ years and me, thus allowing divorce. It has taken me two years to get to this point, and I am ready now, no longer scared of what's to come.

I will miss that little car.  I no longer make the kind of money that allows me to acquire such an expensive car, and that is a little hard to swallow.   I no longer live a life with as many of the trappings as I did when the TT entered my life, and I must admit I miss many of those trappings.  But I live a very nice life, and while I may not have many of the material trappings, I also no longer have many of the emotional chains and baggage I once had, either.  Here's to the next chapter, and RIP little car.

Collective Unconscious

Boyan Mastov

One of the experiences in art that never fails to excite and interest me is seeing evidence of the collective unconscious which leads artists in diverse media and diverse locations to be inspired by a similar muse.  How is it possible that a ceramic artist in New Hampshire and a fiber artist on Whidbey Island in Washington State can be exploring similar territory, each with his or her own unique spin, stamp, and stitch?  What informs the choice of color, shape, and composition?  It amazed me when I was looking at my company's site, artfulhome.com, to see new work, and I found these very pieces sitting near each other, looking like cousins, like kindred spirits.

Janet Steadman

                        
How is it possible that we as humans think alike, even when separate?  How is it possible that men and women can start in very different places, visually, yet arrive in similar destinations?  And why is it that certain visual cues cause a rise in so many of us?  Is it learned or just part of the human experience?  Are we all influenced by forces of nature that we are not aware of?  I don't know, but it certainly intrigues me when I see it before my eyes.

Joan Gold

Liza Halvorsen

Smitten

Here in my lovely foodie Mecca known as San Francisco, there is a singular ice cream business called Smitten. Imagine a pop up store in a hipster neighborhood where each scoop of ice cream is literally made one at a time, to order, before your eyes in a super little mixer piping in a cooling agent, very DIY meets hi tech. The ice cream itself is outstanding, and worth its high price and long wait if you are the kind of person who gets a kick out of artisan food-making and heavenly deliciousness. And so my story begins. After a movie the other night with a man I am getting to know, I suggested we head over to Smitten. Why? Because the night was still young and I didn't want it to end; because I am often up for adventure and am looking for a partner with similar energy; because I love ice cream and it seemed just right and he had never been to Smitten and I wanted to watch his reaction, because it was uncharacteristically warm for SF and I wanted to take advantage of the weather with this relative newcomer to the Bay Area. It wasn't a test. I have "tested" men in the past at times when I was playing more of a game of love than experiencing a real connection. This was wanting to know a little bit more about someone through an experience. And may I say? I was and am smitten.

Fate

Last week marked  Rosh Hashanah, the beginning of the Jewish New Year.   I am not, nor have I ever been, a religious person, having been raised in a secular household, yet I have always been aware and observant, at least in a casual way, of this most serious of Jewish holidays.  The idea of taking the time to repent for relationships gone awry and making amends to repair damage - or at least take responsibility - is a practice I hold in high regard and try to uphold.

But in addition, one of the beliefs associated with Rosh Hashanah is the belief that a person’s fate for the coming year is decided during the High Holy Days, and this I find most interesting to contemplate.  Of course I really don't believe such a thing is possible, as it seems to imply that there is a loss of determination of one's life based on the actions of every single day.  But what if?  What if it was possible to seal your fate based on the actions you took during a particular 10 day period?  What might you do differently?

This seems the stuff of movies and romance novels, of science fiction and fairy tales, of operas, both musical and of the soapy variety.  I had a couple of dates planned during these 10 days with a man I am most keen on, but to put the pressure on those dates that the actions from them might seal my fate for the next year?  Unfair to both him and me!  I have some really interesting business meetings coming up within this same time period, but again the pressure to have them determine the year's outcome seems to suffocate them before they even happen.

I realize that how I behave does have a longlasting effect whether in relationships of  love or business.  Both kinds of relationships are so much more complicated than to have their fates sealed by a 10 day window, yet having the marker of a holiday to remind us that WE are in control of our actions, that WE are responsible for how we act and treat others, and that WE are not above apologizing when we behave badly is most welcome.