Spring Cleaning & Emotional Durability

Posted on April 15, 2023

Change, reflected through pottery choices. Phasing out little blue dresses and low-rise denim are salient events in my style journey. They are causing a whole lot of churn in my mind and chaos in the closet. Navigating it with least waste, is a personal style goal.

was told : “It’s just stuff. don’t overthink it. Get rid of it later.”

In my head : Sigh! ecological ill-literacy or apathy !? “Just stuff”, is systemically making the planet inhabitable. “Love people, not things” quoters should learn about the interconnections in the ecosystems and our place in it.

Some humans are overgrazing and cooking up the planet. In 2023, after experiencing significant climate chaos, we still use words “rid” casually. We are still bragging about number of trash bags full of clothing we let go. Spring cleaning is upon us. Instead of celebrating the end of hibernation/waking up of life, it’s become the peak disposal season. In the olden days, one would deep scrub their home, wash woolens, mend holes, up-cycle what cant be mended, air out rooms after the long winter, wipe the windows, cleaned rugs and change out linens – back breaking domestic work. Today, it’s synonymous with throwing out stuff in loads and feeling good about the temporary empty space. Before I go through my stuff and question if something I am bored of is disposable too, perhaps some introspection is in order.

I am currently sitting by the window admiring the wild life outside. The winter rain storms poured life back into our landscapes. They say that birdsong is one of the first indicators of an improvement in the ecosystem. We cant step outside without noticing the new life and shiny-healthy-happy trees. We open our compost bin for an hour in the morning so that our humming bird can feast on the insects. She never forgets the location of a food source and comes back every single day. Leave it open for longer, and the wood-rat gatecrashes this feast. Every single plant has had a growth spurt and we live in a constant exhilaration of this new life in the garden. I cant help but think about living responsibly on this land and my consumption. I still haven’t gotten over the pair of Officene Creative burgundy oxfords that I let go last year. They were high quality – divine leather, breathable, Goodyear welted, protective toe caps, not cheap, European elitist, purchased after considerable saving of pennies, … attributes that would earn membership into the menswear quality discussion clubs that discuss blazers down to the stitch. After 400+ wears, they remained perfectly wearable. All the rumors of good quality were true. However, I was tired of them. I started wearing them on puppy walks, when it rains and into the snow. Donating them felt like a kinder way to give them a second life, then ruining them on purpose. Counting the number of wears in my spreadsheet was supposed to help. “I wore these shoes for 2 years of my life in the last decade while my other shoes hardly get worn”, became the excuse backed by the spreadsheets. Not even boxing them for a year and bringing them back, was a compromise I could stomach. I wanted them gone and off they went. Clothes no longer fall apart on me. I fall apart on them. Emotional durability is the last remaining link in the supply chain to personally solve for. I forgive myself for wasting a pair of shoes, but cant forget the waste. It clashes with my version of ideal self. What does it take for me to wear something into the ground ? Some scenarios to check out of this hedonistic treadmill :

Retire interest in fashion. Adopt a uniform and never look around. Develop an aversion to shopping. Wear what I have, happily ever after. ( Not happening any time soon.)
Having just enough and not being able to afford more. ( I wouldn’t wish for scarcity on myself. Not ever. I can do a tighter budget with the help of my partner and reduce my exposure to fashion.)
A spiritual epiphany where stuff becomes insignificant.
Go on a shopping fast and break the fast by buying that one fantasy garment of my dreams. Repeat year after year. I wont dare let them go. ( I do like the idea of being that woman who saves up for years and buys that one fabulous coat when she finds it. She only buys that one garment that year. That’s my version of ideal self from miles and miles away.)(Also, does one need exorbitant money spent on a garment to wear it into the ground ? That sounds more like a bug in the head than a viable solution.)
Shopping my own closet and creating a capsule to rotate through. ( Can try.)
RealReal banning me. ( That would drop my shopping to a zero and make me treasure what I own.)
Vipassana meditation. ( We all know what needs to be done. How to do it, is a skill. Meditation trains the mind. )
The easiest : Spring clean my wishlist. In the equation : “Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Rot”, refuse and reduce get ignored while recycle gets glorified. Reduce needs, not reduce stuff by throwing it out after overconsumption. The less I buy at this stage of having, the lesser the premature discarding I will participate in.

Spring cleaning : 2023 guidelines

Do not throw out usable garments. Keep them for as long as possible and challenge yourself to introduce ex-favourites into outfits.
Consult the spreadsheet. With a 100 item closet, it is entirely impossible to remember everything and do justice to everything owned, without some intervention. A low tech solution is to glance at the closet-wear-count spreadsheet and consider the least worn items when picking an outfit for the day. Another low tech solution is to create a capsule and rotate it out every 2 months.
Start hand washing the sweaters on weekends. Pack out the winter closet. Clean the closet and all its surfaces with soap. Do some actual old fashioned cleaning.
Increase the snooze time on everything in the wishlist to 2 months. Any sooner, should be called an impulse purchase. Prioritize blue denim search over other categories of garments that I don’t really need.
Update closet spreadsheet. Condition leather goods. Take some OOTD photos and write blog posts on style. I just discovered the joy of wearing blue denim ! There is lot to share. Writing is pleasure. Writing steals time away from shopping that otherwise can pull me in. Writing keeps me out of trouble. It holds me accountable. Write the damn blog.
Repeat these lines as needed : slow fashion is when we stop asking “what’s the next find” and start enjoying when we have.
Declutter the wishlist.
Forgive yourself if you stumble. Sustainable living is a practice. Good habits aren’t binary.

Recommended Reading : Emotional Durability.

Good Read : When Maria writes about clothes.

Too Small to Matter : The Elephant Wisperers

Posted on March 18, 2023

While I was browsing for my next pair of denim, I found something to play in the background on Netflix. A documentary called The Elephant Whisperers. The hunt for denim became the background and the movie swallowed me up. It’s all heart and pure love amidst a very difficult life. That Oscar is well deserved for a story that needs to be heard !! Some words that stayed with me :

” we walk the forest without shoes. This is our temple and in our culture, you dont wear shoes in the temple”

“to our leader, the health of the forest is the most important administrative task”.

“we are dependent on our needs with the forest. However, we dont take more than we need from the forest, to protect her” .

More stories on indigenous people please. More climate art please.

Watch here.

On Lawns

Posted on March 17, 2023

TLDR : What a silly useless piece of grass !

BE AN OAK

A good death.

him and I were talking about death. Our deaths.

He shared his wishes for post-death rituals.

I asked him to bury me someplace close to home and plant an oak tree on top. And to pay a service to water this oak tree for the first 4 years till it is established. Or cremate, scatter ashes and mulch an Oak tree of his choice in Oakland. Which ever is the least hassle.

{ In my understanding of the world, death is not the end of life but a part of it. If no one died, I wouldn’t be here. Cheating death is wanting to break the cycle. It’s the old eating the young. Certain Buddhist philosophies ask you to think about death several times a day : so that one may not be terrified of it and become cowardly in the face of it. I got my life from my ancestors and the land. When I die, I want to become a good ancestor. My carbon could nourish an Oak – a mother tree in my ecosystem. Oaks endemic to California can house unto 300 terrestrial vertebrate species, 1100 vascular plant species, 370 fungal species and 5000 arthropod species. They have a tap root as well a wide roots. This system helps draw water up from deep aquifers and moves the water horizontally in the habitat. This helps many plants survive the drought months in California until the winter rains arrive. Oak leaf litter improves soil structure and promotes healthy fungal growth. Plant an oak, and blue jays appear. Our local native American tribe believed that the creator exists in its leaves. I believe it too given how they support life. They are sacred. }

I shared my wishes. He listened.

He had a glint in his eye and an evil smile : “what if I plant lawn on top instead”

My heart sank. Words flew out of my mouth.

“when I can be an oak tree, but become an ecological dead space”

“when I cant support life, but choose to suck up resources that we dont have”

“when I can only exist in symbiosis with a master who has the extraordinary privilege of owning a piece of land but chooses to put some useless colonial status grass that he can mow and feel good about … “

” to have a master who confuses control over nature with gardening ….. to have such a master and to be this grass when I could have been an oak tree … “

” Not a lawn. That’s a horrible after life. Is hell the word for such a thing ? “

“If there is a hell, its landscaping would be all fluorescent green lawn that touches the horizons on all sides”

” I need to find an executor for my will.”

This stance on lawns has been brewing for a long time now. I didn’t know I had these many words for a dislike. Even in this imaginary scenario, my body felt violated. It made me sad that I have to die to be in close proximity to an Oak. Today, I can plant an Oak in my yard, but cant, because my partner desires a lawn as I desire a garden. Meanwhile, I drive to trails in the Bay to visit the trees like one goes on a pilgrimage. To walk in California’s forests but return home and want a lawn, is baffling. To pay a premium to live in California, admire it for its unique biodiversity, and to plant some silly European grass at home, is collective cultural cognitive dissonance.

Not a lawn. A Native Sedge Grass meadow, created by Terremoto Landscapers. Brilliant & Poetic !

BE OF THE LAND

Be a native, not a tourist.

Land stewardship is ecological knowledge work. Buying a house didn’t exactly automatically download this knowledge into our heads. (We aren’t allowed to drive cars without passing the drivers test. But with land, we trust with who ever can pay for her. ) We continue to make many mistakes with the land. Multiply this with every homeowner with some land attached to the house. What a tragedy to assume this responsibility but have no training ? Why do we want land attached to our houses if we don’t want to learn how to keep it alive ? Who has extra 100 hours to learn this knowledge ? Why are single family homes the aspiration ? Is lounging in a yard that important ? Why are large yards sold to folks who have no time or energy for any of this work ? Every yard is a car dependency amplifier. Larger my yard, more every neighbor has to drive to get home. Larger my plot, more impossible it is to build transit. Why cant we lounge in shared public scapes? Why cant lounging be done with a garden present ? As I ask these questions, I have learnt a thing or two :

A garden is not a collection of plants, but a functioning part of an eco-system. If it doesn’t resemble your local ecosystem, its not a garden. It’s vanity in the midst of a climate crisis and mass extinction of animals. It’s trash design that needs our help getting phased out.

The goal of creating a garden is to nurture an intelligent system that will function with minimal human input over time. Native gardens are precisely that and provide shelter/food/migratory support to our non-human neighbors. (We made them homeless to build housing for ourselves. We can show some compassion by inviting them back.) To create this living system and to make it beautiful, is the highest art form I can think of.

The reality remains : Who has the time and energy to learn ecology, philosophize about beauty, execute a plan, spend the money, upkeep the habitat & be a functioning adult ? So the ‘nothing of gardens’ – the lawn, has taken over lands that once used to be functioning thriving ecosystems. I am making a plan but the culture around me is fighting me at every step at executing a garden. The HOA, the natural gas pipeline in the middle of my yard, the husband, the real estate norms, the availability of native plants, time-energy , existence of invasive species, my lack of knowledge, my lack of training, my lack of physical strength, my lack of communication skills, my lack of patience, … Creating a native garden is restoration and conservation work. We dont have to fly to some rainforest far away to volunteer to save the animals. Every median on every street, every yard, every parking lot, every excessively paved surface, every monoculture working field/farm, … is land we can restore.

FACTS

Rethink lawns

Conservation that is confined to parks will not preserve species in the long run, because these areas are too small and too separated from one another.

Although we must continue to protect good habitat wherever it still exists, we can no longer afford to ignore the ecological value of the land outside of our preserves – that is, the areas between isolation habitat fragments.

Restoring habitat where we live and work, and to a lesser extent where we farm and graze, will go a long way towards building biological corridors that connect preserved habitat fragments with one another.

Creating biological corridors will enlarge the population of plants and animals within protected habitat, enabling them to weather normal population fluctuations indefinitely.

Across the United States, millions of acres now covered in lawn can be quickly restored to viable habitat by untrained citizens with minimal expense and without any costly changes to infrastructure.
Natures Best Hope, Douglas Tallamy.

they are chock-full of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer. The extra runs off–onto sidewalks, and into storm drains and waterways. There are no bees, no butterflies, few or no birds…you almost never see anyone playing on them. The only people on them are mowing, spraying or blowing them to make them “neat and clean.”
Reader comment, NYT.

Ecological function and the use of native plants to restore biodiversity is a top trend in gardening and landscaping across the country, and is here to stay because of all the environmental challenges we face. Too many of these associations are managed with outdated aesthetics, poor information and a lack of value for life itself. As more landscape architects, designers and landscapers embrace native plants, we’ll have better designed habitat landscapes and eventually overcome pushback about “weeds” from people that don’t even know what is growing around them or why it matters. Bring on the next generation, my own is wearing me out with ignorance.
Reader comment, NYT.

There seem to be many people in the US who are “plant blind.” All they see is something green. There is no understanding of how plants function, or how an ecosystem works, or how plants benefit humans. Do you like to eat? Plants, directly or indirectly, provide virtually all our food (salt is the only exception I can think of). Do you like to breathe? Plants release oxygen when they transpire. Then they take in the carbon dioxide we exhale, and turn it into food! I think this is the only actual miracle in the world, and it gets little notice or respect.
Reader comment, NYT.

I wonder how many people realise that in bagging their leaves they are throwing away next year’s fireflies, butterflies and other beneficial insects.
Reader comment, NYT.

there’s no place for a purely ornamental lawn. Those should be consigned as relics of 18th Century gentry and 20th Century suburbia. We owe small animals a bit of refuge. We owe native flora some extra habitat. We owe ourselves a parcel of nature. If you own a yard that isn’t used for anything in particular, rewild it.
Reader comment, NYT.

They are deserts for our environmental future.
Reader comment, NYT.

Grass contributes absolutely nothing to the world and uses an extraordinary amount of resources. The concept of a lawn for every house is an idea whose time has passed.
Reader comment, NYT.

Green expanse of shorn lawns are as out-of-date and out-of-step as fur coats, diamond engagement rings, “oriental” rugs, silver tea sets, and other things you’ll find in your grandparents’ or great-grandparents’ homes. Uninteresting, and made popular ages ago and no reason to continue.
Reader comment, NYT.

BEAUTY WILL SAVE US

Every artist, Arise ! Teach us how to reimagine a sustainable world.

Our sense of what makes a yard “beautiful” needs to evolve. But nobody wins converts with a “messy” yard, however ecological it may be. Gardens need to be “culturally” sustainable, too. There are also strategies that ecologically-minded homeowners like the Crouches can use to lessen resistance to their approach and help integrate their yards into neighborhoods with out-dated HOA restrictions and conventional landscapes dominated by turf. In a paper called “Messy Ecosystems, Orderly Frames,” landscape architect Joan Nussbaum coined the phrase “cues to care” to describe ways of making ecological landscapes “legible,” so they look intentional and well cared for. This is especially important in front-facing, highly visible or heavily trafficked areas such as along entrances, sidewalks, and walkways. It is achieved by using plants with neat mounding habits and/or lower heights, long bloom times, strongly architectural forms, in bold patterns, and especially by maintaining neat, clearly defined edges to garden beds. Mulched or mown paths between beds offer a contrast to and contain the looser plantings within. Areas near the periphery of the yard (e.g., along the rear fence or side yards) can be more naturalistic.

It’s the choice between { knowledge-less + mind-less yard + less effort } and creating something of { ecological value + beauty + upfront investment}. Facts dont inspire us to become a gardener. Facts seldom change peoples minds. If they did, we would have solved all of our environmental problems eons ago. Stories do. Emotions do. Beauty does. My job now is to create something beautiful. I am slowly clawing little bits of land from our lawn and planting natives. We have the design world on our side. Architecture Digest 100 list came out. All the landscapers who made it in, do native naturalist design. I see lawns being replaced with low water landscaping in high-end house flips. There is a push for legislation to prevent sales of invasive species, to limit the percentage of the yard that can be a lawn, rebates for removing lawn, to encourage more native plants in nurseries, …. A new generation seems to be fighting the lawn culture of the suburbs. Every time I am discouraged, I have Terremoto Landscape Architects to lift my spirits. Their work is sublime. Allow me to present some of their photos :

KILL THE LAWN

A to-do list for us.

Lawns give me a heartache for the life lost. It didnt start this way. My climate education got me here. Lawns are beloved by everyone around me. I see this conundrum as the clash between a way of life that is the normal in suburbs and the climate solutions. After many many conversations, he made some concessions and an agreement has been made to make space for the natives. The steps to remove my lawn :

Plow it out. ( Hello shoulder, arm and glute muscles ! )
Lay a plastic sheet during the warm weather for 6 week to solarize the seeds in the soil.
Flush it with water a couple of times till more grass comes out. Tear it out again.
Cover with cardboard and drench it. Top it with 5 inches of fine mulch.
Water the mulch for a few week to get it to start to break down and become soil.
Vola ! a blank slate to begin with.
50 % natives for me, 50 % native sedge grass for him. This article for when I am ready to plant.
I am planting a baby leather Oak once the last chance of frost passes. Once the beauty of an Oak is explained, hearts melt. his did.
Draw plans to create a garden for wildlife habitat.

NWF_Garden-Certification-Checklist Download

Denim Gazing : Mari Giudicelli

Posted on March 10, 2023

Can there be a style intersection between a tall lanky off-duty Brazilian model and a short medium-built Indian remote tech worker ?

In a year, I will let you know how this exploration goes.

While athleisure can be the fall back model for remote work, relaxed fit denim and t-shirts will do the job too. ( Why wear plastic at home for no real reason ? Reserve it for kick-ass workouts and rough weather. Cotton, linen and wool can absolutely provide lounge-y comfort without the micro plastic pollution. ) Unkept hair, worn in denim, faded neckbands on t-shirts, experimental combinations are finally back in my life again. One style goal dominated my past decade – find the small subset of garments that make a uniform. With no office to go to, that bubble burst for me. I refuse to hand wash silk shirts, condition leather shoes and iron clothes, if I don’t have to. Quirky accessories that are miles away from the classification of professional, are back on my radar. I found a colorful braided leather belt in Alameda flea market and felt “cool” wearing it. Cool, is a brand new adjective for me. Simple and elegant, were my preferred adjectives. My white leather sneakers have red soles. Some teenage fantasies flared up too – the t-shirt. Mari Giudicelli’s style is the reference marker from my past, that has dominated the inspiration mood board. “Good mischief” is how I would dub her style. Mari’s closet is full of garments that I would classify as “where did you get that?” However, every time I find such a garment IRL, I shyly walk away from it.

In the comfort of outside a professional space, I ain’t shy. I am alright wearing some unusual combinations of clothes from my existing closet – husband’s leather jacket over denim on denim, oversized everything, accessories while staying indoors, Indian indigenous peoples inspired jewelry with t-shirts, husband’s Hawaii floral shirt over my trousers, …… I purchased my first white t-shirt ever, (in the history of EVER), from UniqloU, to wear with blue denim. Borrowing my husband’s vintage army jacket is becoming a habit. The leash is off and I experience a certain freedom. I bought an educational botanical t-shirt and wear it to local gatherings. I want folks around me to recognize plants that are in dire need of our conservation efforts. I want us to mourn and fight for keystone species that are going extinct. Is that going to happen if no one has even heard of these species ? Sometimes, I am open to using my clothes to express myself. Fun begins when the ‘shyness’ slowly chips away. I don’t want a personal style journey that does NOT put sustainability as a core value and only make small concessions for the sake of greenwashing. The approach I adopted was “settle into a uniform that makes you consume least and provide most number of wears over your lifetime”. I am slowly allowing concessions for experiments and change. This is the human I want to be : discipline first and fun in doses. Together, it’s a joy. Will this spark last? As a perennial latecomer to trends, 2 years from now, will I discover fancy sweatpants that were popular when pandemic first started ? (I hope not.) Or will I be back in offices wearing my core uniform ? (I don’t mind). A hedge against waste and pollution, is to keep the dosage of experimental items small and only acquire them on thrift. That’s the plan.

Currently Reading : Notes on Taste.

Denim Gazing : Olivia Villanti of Chava Studio

Posted on March 4, 2023

“Try not to gather style inspiration photos from ex-ballarinas and off duty models. They are not my body type. They distort my sense of proportions and beauty.“

I fail. All of my Pinterest is one body type.

“Try to find inspiration outside the fashion industry professionals“, I ask myself. Building a closet that isn’t appropriate for my office settings, is a chance at hoarding clothes I seldom wear.

I fail.

Till I succeed, allow me the present women in the fashion industry who do denim well.

Blue Jeans, Inspiration

Posted on February 28, 2023

Style Icon : Anthony Bourdain

Posted on February 22, 2023

An ice breaker Q : “which famous figure from the past do you miss the most?“

My A : Bourdain.

A tribute to him poured out when that question was asked. I don’t know of any other food show where the gathering at the table and the place is more important than the food on the table. Listening to most peoples travel stories bores me for this reason. “I did this” “I saw that” “I ate that” …. The “I” precede the place, in most accounts. The information conveyed is more about what the tourist consumed than about the place. I seek stories of slow travel and a nuanced understanding of the places we live in. Geology, ecology, history, politics, culture, food, art, climate impacts, with time… must be learnt in new and old places. I look for accounts of places consuming a tourist and spitting out a different version to be returned home. I know of a few individuals who travel this way. No many can show this on screen, but his shows do.

Why him ? For this reason :

DAVIES: (Laughter) Is it true in Namibia you were offered an unwashed warthog rectum?

BOURDAIN: Yeah. Well, they killed a pig, and apparently that was the – you know, the chief yanks that part out and throws it on the grill and grills it medium rare and splits it with me. And I look – the whole tribe is watching. He’s offering me what he sees as the best part. That’s a clear take-one-for-the-team situation.

What am I going to do, refuse him, embarrass him in front of his people, look ungrateful? That changes the whole tenor of the relationship. I mean, when somebody’s offering you food, they’re telling you a story. They’re telling you what they like, who they are. Presumably, it’s a proud reflection of their culture, their history, often a very tough history. You turn your nose up at that important moment, the whole relationship changes, and it will never be the same.
NPR

The man maybe flawed in ways fans don’t want to see. But this reply changed my view point on travel and life. ( Vipassana meditation emphasize something similar – less “I” as we navigate the world and more discipline towards reducing harm. Attending a meditation camp makes you aware that your boarding, food and tutelage is made possible by charity of the practitioners who walked the halls prior to you. Mary Oliver taught “I go to the other, hold out my begging bowl, and ask them to fill it with their beauty.” ) The ‘tough history’ part of it hit me. With this mindset, there is no bad neighborhood or boring place to visit. One can travel every single day and in any location. Travel isn’t something that only starts when one boards a flight or when on vacation. Every place has a time component that tells us the why behind it. Travel is an understanding of the place. Do you know enough about the land you live on ? Have you walked every street in your city ? Do you know enough about the people who lived here before you ? His episode made me learn the history of my great-grand-mother and my ancestors who created this entire vegetarian root-to-leaf cuisine to make-do with a limited range of crops grown reliably. She had told me of a year when they only ate lentils for a month and would sell milk from the one family cow meant to feed the family, for extra cash to run the household. She knows of a hundred ways to use lentils. She had told me about how she wanted to buy an extra aluminum cooking pot and was reprimanded for wanting “extra things” when the nation was fighting for it’s independence from British colonizers. She knows how to care for the cheaper clay pots. She once told me that she pushed herself to be creative because she had this deep rooted desire to feed her loved ones better. Living the agrarian sustinance lifestyle which is hard, gave us our cuisine. They created a masterpiece passed on to us, by our mothers. This is creativity. Contrast this with outfit makers who have hundreds of items in the closet, style them and call it a creativity. I fell into this trap of confusing styling with actually creating something true with worthy constraints like sustainability and have to constantly remind myself to think better. Today, when I cook traditional plant based food at home, I am grateful for the genius and resiliance of my ancestors. It took a Bourdain episode to force me to see.

He is missed. A style tribute to him has been pending on my blog for a decade now. Nothing I tried to put together in a post, lived up to the rockstar that he is in my head. Let me present some photographs for us to observe and leave it at that.

“[When I die], I will decidedly not be regretting missed opportunities for a good time. My regrets will be more along the lines of a sad list of people hurt, people let down, assets wasted and advantages squandered.”

“It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after,you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you’ve been and whats happened. In the end, you’re just happy you were there- with your eyes open- and lived to see it.”

“For a moment, or a second, the pinched expressions of the cynical, world-weary, throat-cutting, miserable bastards we’ve all had to become disappears, when we’re confronted with something as simple as a plate of food.”

“There’s something wonderful about drinking in the afternoon. A not-too-cold pint, absolutely alone at the bar – even in this fake-ass Irish pub.”

“Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable, and satisfying. And I’ll generally take a stand-up mercenary who takes pride in his professionalism over an artist any day.”

“Just because someone you work with is a miserable, treacherous, self-serving, capricious and corrupt asshole shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying their company, working with them or finding them entertaining.”

“Everybody should come here. Everyone should see how complicated, how deeply troubled, and yet at the same time, beautiful and awesome the world can be. Everyone should experience, even as the clouds gather, what’s at stake, what could be lost, what’s still here.”

“How do you instruct a woman who’s already survived incredible hardship, who’s worked hard all her life, on how to live ‘properly’, when your life is, by contrast, a carefree wonderland of excess, sloth and caprice?”

“But I’m simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I’ve seen it. It’s all here: the good, the bad and the ugly.”

When his estate came up for auction, his clothes were put out for sale. They went for thousands of dollars but I did manage to grab some screen shots. Seeing the garments I admired on the man, all squished up in a stack, saddened me. I have always wanted to see his closet, but not like this. I don’t think it’s the clothes at all. And yet, his clothes do right, by him. It was still interesting to see what he chose and how he wore them.

Simona Simoni leather jacket.

Apsesi Olive Green Jacket. Kenneth Cole Distressed Jacket.

Custom US Navy Jacket from the USS Nashville with a Tony Bourdain Patch. Schoffel Green GoreTex Jacket.

Shoyoroll Windbreaker. Levis Strauss and CO + Filson Waterproof Jacket.

Levis Strauss Filson Trucker Jacket. Levis Strauss and Co tan suede jacket.

Cleo of Ireland wool jacket. Boglioli Milano cotton blazer.

Looking at the articles of clothing, it’s not the obvious pairing of garments that make him a style icon. So I wont put together a collage on how to dress like Anthony. Let’s leave it at that.

Style Lately : changes

Posted on February 15, 2023

**Mari Giudicelli’s closet. Can the least worn garments hanging in my closet magically morph into denim perfectly fitted to my body ?**

The end of dresses.

In my 20s, I wore body con dresses or skinny jeans with fitted t-shirts. Living on the campus of a party school influenced how I perceived beauty and style. In my early 30s, A-line dresses felt liberating. It was the feminist thing to do : give relaxed silhouettes a chance and to not dress for the male gaze. Today, dresses feel like a costume from my past. The last time I wore a maxi dress with a full skirt in India, it felt theatrical … like I was roleplaying a part. ( I got compliments and somehow felt insulted for falling in line with a certain idea of femininity. ) I am moving on. What was once a closet of dresses is slowly inching towards a stack of pants.

End of ballet flats

My puppy’s boyfriend chewed up a pair of my ballet flats. I miss the money I spent on those flats more than the shoes themselves. Sneakers are more suited to my lifestyle. Ballet flats were my idea of feminine shoes from my past phase of life. Instead of donating my stash, I am slowly wearing them out with no intention of replacing them. I have friends who own just enough that they wear out the garments, right in time for a personal style update. I buy too many of the same thing. Any change in personal style leaves me with a capsule of clothes to waste. ( I am less likely to do repairs and extend life of shoes once I have fallen out of love with them. ) True to this behavior, I have built a collection of sneakers and cant see myself going back to dainty shoes.

Voluminous pants

Everything that I once looked for in an A-line dress, I now need from my trousers. I need negative space. I need fabric to not cling to me. I am discovering silhouettes that aren’t aspiring to be skinny or caricature-feminine. Pants of different kinds of volume and drape, interests me. COS curved seam wide leg trousers were my initiation. They have exceeded 300 wears and warrant another pair to share the load. Which pair comes next ? I am unsure. Finding these fantasy pants is still pending.

Worker wear.

After loosing interest in all fashion news and after the collapse of formal dressing since covid, my style has become independent of fashion trends. I don’t know of IT bags and magazine/blog content anymore. There is no store I visit seasonally. It is a big relief. I meet younger women aggressively building bag collections or eagerly awaiting the release of certain designer’s collections. I cant relate. That life is behind me and good riddance. Getting off that hamster wheel, is self-care. It’s a mental bandwidth reclaimed. It’s money saved. My old comfort zones, became updated personal style. T-shirts, denim, flannel, sneakers and puffer jackets are my most worn garments from 2022. If walker-gardener-commuter chic is a style category, I am on that pathway. “How would Mary Oliver dress today?” is something I ask often. How did she live ? Did she live in a small cottage ? What was her cabin like ? She walks + writes for living and for a living. How did she dress for her walks in New England ? How different is her every day wear from how she is dressed in photos of her on the internet ? I have been visiting the homes of my friends affiliated with California Native Plant society, California naturalists, animal lovers or climate work. Their homes, vehicles, travel and closets reflect their values and subsequent way of life. I do envy humans who can combine thrift, beauty and low-carbon living. I am inspired by how they dress.

There is a portion of my closet chosen for durability and ease of movement. Integrating worker-wear is the answer.

a t-shirt

My trip to india helped me find a yoga teacher. We do 2 lessons per week. I walk puppy twice a day. We do 2 hikes per week. I clean my house. I dig in the garden. I carry stacks of book between library and home. I walk to the train station and live the car-free lifestyle for 5 days a week. My body has changed to reflect my activity. I started to fit into my oldest surviving clothes. Simplest garments, are sufficient. I am content wearing a t-shirt with a puffer jacket/vest on most days. As much as I dislike tech-bro way of dressing, that is where I seem to have landed. UniqloU make the perfect short sleeve mid-weight version for me. Finding a long-sleeve cotton and merino wool version of the t-shrit is still pending.

Blue denim

One pair of blue boyfriend jeans were enough back in the day. I wore black denim to the office. Blue was too casual, not elegant enough, too colorful,…. I used to wear that blue pair on short hikes, cleaning day and laundry day. Today, it’s become the only pair getting worn. A crew neck t-shirt and well fitting jeans has become the fantasy outfit I am trying to fulfill. I never was a fashion hype-beast. I discover trends only when they are on their way out. 2 years later, to be precise, I want heavy weight vintage blue denim. Not high rise, but mid-rise. After the last decade wearing raw stiff denim, thin soft denim feels like underwear pretending to be jeans. I can’t commit to a pair of denim that wont survive the wear. For denim, one should choose for the decade and mentally commit to mending. Shopping for this said pair, is work I begrudgingly do. Ordering online, trying on denim, printing return labels, carrying boxes to the post office, is now a bi-weekly chore. Investing in tailoring a not so perfect pair, is looking like the most viable way to find this mythical pair of denim.

Pause on Minimalism

For the sake of the planet, I would like to own just enough and wear all of my clothes into the ground. But I have been unable to be content with what I have. I have added more categories to the subset of outfits that I consider uniform : { blue jeans and navy blue t-shirt. black pleated wide leg trousers and navy blue t-shirt }. I am searching for blue denim that fits me. I am looking for trousers that have the right kind of volume. Until I find what I am looking for and settle into it, I cant optimize for less consumption. It is easier to make a few additions, give it time and then subtract things that don’t work out. Much easier than zooming in on the perfect pair of pants in a new silhouette on the date of purchase and it working out like anticipated. Meanwhile, I am selling away the dresses and subtracting dainty shoes. My closet is in a state of flux and an equilibrium seems too aspirational right now.

Dear M

Posted on February 2, 2023

Today, I sent you another one-line email about the love I feel for my puppy. You are the first person I can call up and chant “I love her too much. Why is she so cute? ” on repeat. Who else will listen without rolling eyes at me ? Mothers to human babies can talk about the love without getting dismissed. Dog mothers, are shy for a good reason. Only a soul sister can listen. Today, I am planning the day around taking her to the marsh and showing her the birds. It’s a 2 hour walk. I should be working and doing zillion other things. But for her, time and energy gets summoned. I want to see her play on the trails. To give her this experience, is my pride. I want her to show me what my eyes don’t see. To learn one more little detail about the land I live on, is slow mindful travel. After wishing that I lived closer to wilderness – a forest by my mind’s default image of nature, I realized that I did live next to one of the last remaining swamps in the Bay. California, has been slowly restored it using our tax payer money. Forests get all the attention, while there are other biomes near me. All of them are significant and necessary. We have not learnt the importance of grasslands and wetlands. Grasslands look like empty space for future McMansions. Wetlands are drained and landfilled. We destroy them and plant some trees in the wrong places in the name of reforestation. Puppy and I, have set out to discover the beauty of the wetlands. I really wish that a certain politician didnt make ‘drain the swap’, a colonialist understanding of how to destroy an ecosystem, the political slogan for his campaign. It’s the equivalent of ‘burn the forest’ if the biome is swapped. The indigenous people who lived here till 200 years ago, lived in symbiosis with the wetlands. The colonizers made it a ranch land. Then a farm. Then a suburb. ‘Protect the swaps’ can now never become a rally cry. After the recent floods, it has become my silent prayer. Someday soon, as the Forestry chapter at Citizens Climate Lobby strengthens, the prayer is on track to become a tangible action plan. We are gathering strength in numbers – experts, poets, educators, citizens, council members, lawmakers and activists. For now, armed with the cutest puppy as my partner, I learn. Today, she teaches me to see beauty of the swamp and the life in it.

Reading. : I go to the other, hold out my begging bowl and ask them to fill it with their beauty.

Fav things : 2022

Posted on December 28, 2022

1. A dimmable lamp

One little lamp for the house, one giant leap for nesting joy.

Everytime I glance upon the warmth of this lamp, I experience instant happiness. This lamp changed the ambiance of our living space. It made morning coffee a charming ritual. Made tea making luxurious while I wait for leaves to seep. We leave it on during cold winter nights and waking up got easier. I turn it on when I am feeling blah for a dopamine hit.

2. flannel sheets

A lifetime of laughing at people who talk dearly about their sheets can come to an end after discovery of flannel for winter. As Diderot effect would have it, the arrival of these sheets changed our entire sleep hygiene. We started to design our environment to build habits that are long due. We got bed lamps to read a book before sleep, installed a no phones in bed policy, got a candle for our bed table, installed blackout blinds and started making our beds in the morning. Flannel sheets for winter reduced our reliance on room heating.

3. House Slippers

Something durable, work friendly and walkable.

4. Sunscreen

Amazon auto-delivers it every month forcing me to wear enough sunscreen. ETA MD one is my favorite from everything I have tried in my lifetime.

5. K18 Biomimetic Hairscience Leave-In Molecular Repair Hair Mask

My hair went from fabulous to jute-fibers-on-balding-scalp in the last 2 years. While I am addressing the root cause, this mask helps with hiding the symptoms.

6. Nicola Gillis Circle Cup

It’s beauty makes me blush when I pour my tea.

7. charcoal reed diffuser

When your house has one bathroom and guests all the time, this helps. My guests went from constantly exclaiming “how do you survive with just one bathroom” to “that diffuser smells good” when they visit the bathroom. I went from answering “do you know that the average house in UK is 800sft, not 2100sft like America” to “it’s from Apothekee”. Every country protecting it’s biodiversity and making climate progress, has smaller homes reachable by public transit and protects ecosystems from suburban sprawl. Decent Living Standard, the material pre-requisite for human well-being asks for a minimum of 322 sft per person requirement and 100 sft per additional person …. I am much more tolerable as a person recommending beautiful well-made things than as a climate stats spewing person.

8. fjallravan leggings

This is peak design for hikers/backpackers/campers. All the usual places where leggings get their first holes are reinforced. Scraping against rocks don’t result in easy rips. They dry quickly. These have vents. Leggings are usually not recommended for backpacking due to lack of ventillation. If I go 2+ days without a proper shower while hiking distances, these are my best chance of returning home without body acne. They are a source of micro plastic pollution and I use them sparingly.

9. Sophie D’hoore sneakers

Red soles and white uppers.

Something in bad taste and a little naughty.

These are very showy by my standards but I really enjoy wearing them.

I am new to the world of sneakers. These are an experiment going well.

10. A.Emery Sandals

Sandals with a ledge ensure that the soles of the feet stay a tad cleaner. (Thong sandals are not suited for streetwear, imo.) These were what I wore in India and I hope I dragged less mud into the homes of relatives I visited. Women, still do the bulk of household cleaning in the world. We gotta make less trouble.

11. COS overalls

If I were to choose one outfit to wear forever in a warm climate, it would be these overalls and a navy t-shirt. In terms of comfort, these win against anything else I got. If you make an anime/cartoon with me in it, these are what I want my avatar to wear.

12. Assorted Garden tools

I had linked these on my blog’s wishlist in 2017. I finally got them. Thank you dear life for letting wish lists come true !

13. Haws Metal W a t e r i n g Can

Most planted trees in the world die in under 4 years after they are planted due to lack of required nurture or being chosen wrongly. We are a house with lots of baby trees. Watering by hand is the old fashioned way to take care of them. I know exactly how many gallons of water the trees get per week. I walk around the garden, look and see them for long enough to make observations. We have lot of drought tolerant plants that are susceptible to disease when they get their leaves wet in the summer. The long neck helps. This can is the next best thing until I can install a drip or tree jackets.