Day 19/30: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

 

One of the less physical things we had to do in order to earn a merit badge in Girl Scouts was to "begin a collection". Now, this was the 1970s and some of my troopmates already had collections. They collected neon-haired troll dolls, Barbies, Lincoln wheat pennies, comic books, and miniature football helmets. One friend even collected unusual soda cans and she had them glued on to a tall shelf, made by her father, expressly for said purpose. She had a grape Nehi, cemented front and center, that I adored.

Me? I began collecting frogs. Not living and breathing frogs, of course, but little frogs made of ceramic and clay and glass. Frogs with crowns balanced upon their heads were special favorites. A family I babysat for gifted me their frog collection so that my own shelf grew from three to fifty frogs overnight, sort of like when tadpoles hatch in the early summer. 

My frog collection currently lives in my basement in an old banana box strewn with yellowed newspaper. I haven't looked through the box in thirty eight years. I don't want to get rid of them but I don't want to display them either. That's sort of how old stuff is.

As a teenager, I began collecting Laurel Burch goldtone and silvertone artfully enameled earrings. Laurel began selling her designs in the 1970s and finally caught on in my small town in the early 1980s, quickly becoming a sort of status symbol for the waspy and well-heeled in our community. I received my first pair as a gift and was immediately smitten. I loved everything about them; the colors, the weight, the sturdiness. My second pair, which I spent four weeks of hard earned babysitting money on, was stolen from my gym locker the very first day I wore them to school, and the girl who (I think) stole them wore them repeatedly, flaunting them beneath her Jane Wiedlin-style pixie cut as she sat, alphabetically, two seats over from me throughout all of our classes together. 

 

During the pandemic, I started looking for more pairs to supplement my small but distinctive collection. Every pair I owned held a merry story. Laurel uses a lot of nature, birds and cats. I find solace in nature, birds and cats and I found plenty of solace available on eBay and other resale sites. After selling a few things to justify my spending, I bought some vintage pairs and now have over a dozen. I do imagine that's enough, though, and have since pumped the brakes.

A week ago, a friend on Facebook, during a moment of nostalgia, asked where everyone bought Laurel Burch earrings back in the day. I was about to grab the ceramic box I store mine in, snap an exceptional photo and reply with great gusto until someone else replied and referred to them as "crap". Crap? Oh my gosh. My special collectible earrings? This crap is symbolic of my adolescence, almost as much as bonfires, football games, summertime at the lake and weaving daisy chains on the porch. When I wear them (which is a lot) I'm happy. I'm young. And when I catch my reflection and see a violet-hued bluebird hanging festively from my lobe, I exhale gladness, recalling a time before everything got crazy and depersonalized and tinged with snarky hostility. 

I will not be buying any Laurel Burch earrings, but I did select and retrieve ones shaped like doves within a heart from their safekeeping today. They happen to be pink and green, our preptastic color scheme of the '80s. I will wear them and love them and when complimented on them, as I so often am, I will use them as a jumping off point for conversation with a like-minded stranger about a time when they symbolized the height of what we thought of as middle class opulence.

 #mushroomtumbler

 

Day 18/30: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

I have a confession to make.

Even though the subject of my 30 day blog is 'Things I Won't Be Buying Today', I've been buying everything that isn't nailed down.

In observance of Lent, I decided to restrict my food intake, from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday, for the first two meals of each day. Wanting to be pious and at the same time lose some weight, Lent serves as a fine motivation for lots of Catholics. It's a jumping off point for better habits and more thoughtful consumption. 

Over the last two years, stress, cortisol and the pandemic have served as my regular excuses for the expansion of my waistline but if I'm being honest, I should be touting my fondness for tortilla chips, alcohol and abject laziness. The 'Lead me not into temptation' Lenten fasting was going well until about ten days in when I began panicking. I started overeating at night and I started buying things online to fill what was becoming a dark hollow inside of me.

It's a pattern one of my friends (a shopper beyond compare) and I talk about all the time. Why do we skimp in one area and then feel as though we need to splurge in another? Are we simply creatures craving balance or does it go deeper? 

For me, I think it's because perceived lack and I don't play well together. 

Here in my comfortable home I have what I need at any given moment, but there are some deeply sown seeds in me that make 'lack' almost unbearably uncomfortable, whether perceived or real. When I feel a deep emptiness, I overcompensate in other areas. Lately I have been overcompensating by shopping online. A spring jacket here, a craft project there, organic coffee here, a few books I've been wanting to read there. My mail carrier used to be able to simply put my mail in the box but the last few weeks she has been wearing down a path from her truck to my door, brown cardboard boxes balanced on both hips.

This consumption makes me feel bloated and gross. It is not pious. And I'm certainly not losing any weight.

Today, tortilla chips in hand because my Lenten eating plan lasted only two weeks, I'm cleaning out emails when a few pairs of high platform 70s style sandals come to my attention.

Be still my disco heart. These are my absolute favorite kind of footwear. And for a moment I forget about how my spending totally needs to be hog tied. I forget about Lent. I forget about Karen the mail carrier and her harried expression as she limps up my driveway laden with packages.

 

 

 

I begin picturing them lined up in my closet...in all three available colors. I picture skipping this month's car payment so that I may buy them all, painting my toenails bright coral and slipping into them to the funky sounds of KC and the Sunshine Band. I see myself boogieing out to the driveway in them and telling tired beleaguered Karen she's not going to be delivering any more packages. I have found Nirvana in these shoes. They are all I need.

But then I burp from the chips and wake myself up and ask, when am I ever going to wear these? 

Fifteen years ago I had sandals like this. I had them in four different hues and textures. Yes they were high but who cared? My balance was perfect. I was strong. I moved like a young and unencumbered woman. But now, I am indolent and my footwear reflects how boring I have become. I like sneakers, yes, I do. I like the walking variety that doesn't rub too hard on the backs of my soft heels. And I like clogs for the occasions when the sneakers betray me and I become bloody and blistered. I own lots of flip flops, but these days they have a supportive arch. I have a perfect pair of wool mules for when I am in the house, which, during the last twenty four months, has been an awful damn lot.

But these? Oh my God, these ivory platform Saturday Night Fever shoes are my siren song. I see myself in faded bell bottoms and a gray t-shirt sporting the faded name of a college I've never attended. I want to layer southwestern turquoise bracelets on my wrists and slide silver chunky rings on every finger. This is my look, right? I am most like me when wearing things like this, right? 

Let's be real. I haven't worn stuff like this in a couple of years. And I miss it. And that makes me really sad today.

Far too content in my black yoga pants, gray wool slippers and my ancient brown fleece jacket, I am not funkadellic. I'm not even presentable. And looking at these sandals, for the last five minutes, I ask myself why. Why have I decided that it's acceptable to feel less like me? Why have I decided that a cocoon spun of fleece, spandex and wool is my fate? It might be comfy but it's certainly not captivating.

So, I won't be buying these sandals today but I won't be buying tortilla chips either. What I will be investing in is myself and my well being. I'll take a long walk and listen to a motivational speaker, one who tells me I don't need more of anything to be satisfied. One who tells me what I am, who I am, and where I am, is enough. 

#mushroomtumbler

Day 17/30: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

 

This is what I won't be buying today, but I can't promise I won't buy it in the future. I'm thinking it might be in everyone's best interest to learn a few more languages.

60 percent off? That's appealing, considering everything else we are buying costs at least 60 percent more right now.

Have you ever learned a second or third language? Do you still enjoy speaking it? I took great pleasure in and grew pretty proficient at French, having taken 6 years of it in school. I even began dreaming in French, which, people say, is an indication that you are becoming "fluent"... or maybe it means that you have eaten too much creme brulee before bed. Who knows?

My first foray into French was a well meaning sixth grade teacher who gave us all French names and taught us a vocabulary of about ten words like porte, chat, chien, and bonjour. Then, junior high French class was basically a room of thirty pre-teens giggling for forty minutes every other day about words that sounded strange and dirty, or actually were strange and dirty. Merde, coque, defoncer, and my favorite word, fourchette. My four foot four, late bloomer of a seatmate used to whisper, "full [of] shit!" every time we had to say the word for fork, eyes darting side to side with his chin planted surreptitiously upon his chest, shoulders heaving up and down with the witty weight of his cleverness. Madame Certain would glare as we, seated left and right, tittered into our fists and elbows, tears welling in our eyes either because we were trying so hard not to squeal aloud at this munchkin child saying "shit" (it was a different time, swearing in class could get you thrown out or worse) or owing to the fact that we were sitting squarely on our heels planted in just the right spot so we didn't wet ourselves holding back belly laughs after having drunk multiple cartons of chocolate milk at lunch.

Either way, watery eyes. 

And good times.

As we moved into high school, the teachers got stricter and the lessons got harder. It was sentence structure, past, present and future tenses, thick-ass textbooks, and real conversations. But, it all sort of rolled off the tongue with me, without a lot of study time, almost like music. Remarkably, I was also excelling at Algebra and Geometry, and I began believing in the notion of left brain/right brain balance and stimulation.  And wouldn't you know? Once I stopped the "real" math in favor of a guidance counselor-recommended "how to work the computer" Math class, the French wasn't as easily grasped, either. Weird how that happens.

So, would you like to revisit French with me? Should we grab a few Russian lessons, too? I definitely need some Italian. I'd like to travel and order mortadella on an aereo without it sounding like more-duh-del-uh on an air-ee-o. 

And, because our world appears to be getting smaller it might be nice to have the ability to say, "We are all in this together" in a variety of ways.

Just not today, friends. Today we buy groceries and gasoline...and we make charitable donations if we can and where we're able, to those who are feeling the pinch even greater than ourselves. 

Au revoir. Ostavat'sya v bezopasnosti. Alla prossima!

#mushroomtumbler

Day 16/30: Things I Won't Be Buying Today

With the way this world is right now, I haven't been able to think of a single shitty thing I wouldn't be buying in the last week or so. But today, I saw this and decided this is the single shitty thing I won't be buying today.

Pun intended.

 

#mushroomtumbler