wasting time

spring cleaning

This sudden dip in temperature doesn’t fool me. It’s spring, even if the weather won’t cooperate. It’s time for spring cleaning, one of the joys of my year. We all need to purge sometimes, and I’m prone to it whenever I feel stagnant. Tear through the drawers, desk and closet, and find the piece of clothing that’s holding me back.

There’s quite a bit that has to go this year. An abundance of zip up sweaters that never looked good, button downs that pull over the twins, cards there’s no reason to keep, New York magazines that I’ll never look at again, the lamp leftover from the previous tenant that just isn’t me, most of the condiments in the fridge, three inches of dust above the bathroom mirror.

As for what’s staying: pants I haven’t been able to wear in the last three years that have recently gone back into rotation, my favorite pair of jeans (too big, bleached in spots, ripped) because they’re the most comfortable thing I own, Rascal Flatts on my iPod (even though I thought it was just a phase).

I  think this might be just the thing I need. A good purge to kick off the new season.

greyscale

In the photo, her back is to the camera. She’s leaning on her elbows on a beach towel, knees carelessly bent, toes digging into the sand. Sometimes she asks why I have it sitting on my desk and I shrug. It’s not a picture anyone would normally take, it’s just a back on a beach, in black and white.

Thinking back, I know exactly why I took the picture. It was the last day of senior year, and the four of us drove with the top down to the beach, shedding clothes, flip flops and high school as we made our way to the perfect spot. We rubbed sun screen and freedom on each other’s backs, thinking that this was only the beginning of the rest of our lives. When you find yourself in the middle of what will be a perfect memory, you have to capture it. That’s what I did, so that years later I’d be able to look at that picture and remember it, and be back on that beach, in black and white.

on bling.

At the corner of 52 and 5th,
Boy: What’s Cartier?
His mother: (pauses, exhales) Serious jewelry.
Boy: Serious?
His mother: Yes.

And Cartier is serious. So is Bulgari, and Tiffany and Mikimoto. Serious jewelry for frivolous people. I don’t own much serious jewelry. A necklace as a high school graduation gift, and a ‘J’ in white gold and diamonds purchased when I was little. I used to want to wear it all the time. I would hold it tenderly and plead with my mom to let me wear it everyday. But I was never allowed. “It’s special,” she said. I knew when I was allowed to wear it that it was a special day, a special occasion.

I don’t understand people who wear serious jewelry on a regular basis. When I wear a diamond ring, I want it to be because I’m about to walk down the isle, not as an accessory on my right hand. Diamond rings are strictly left hand jewelry. If you wore pearls every day, the special days wouldn’t stand out in your mind. They would blend together with the Tuesdays and Wednesdays of life. When everything is extraordinary, everything is mediocre.