Writing, Rectangles, Nostalgia and Beauty

Working on an essay about my grandson’s birthday is taking longer than I thought, but I want to honor my commitment to post something once a week. In order for the essay to have the time it needs to become something, instead here’s a little writing I did for Dior this week and posted on my Instagram.

 Context:

As some of my long-time followers know, I was once a professor who desired to write creatively beyond academia's boundaries. Whenever I face a limit in life, I take it as a sign it’s time to reinvent. It’s not that I start over, it’s that I make something new out of what I already have.

 At the age of 61, I started a fashion blog; the profound impulse being to write and study fashion. I envisioned my blog as a space for intellectual, modern and engaged women to think and talk about fashion. In my mind, it had nothing to do with age. For the first three, maybe four years, it was the creative project I meant it to be. After that I fell down the slippery slope of commodification and became a “brand” or a word I’ve come to dislike, “influencer”.

 While I became well known and successful, I was unhappy and guilty about it. It took an article about something called millennial burnout, some brave women calling me out and a pandemic to bring me to my senses. I found my moral compass again at the bottom of a bag of clothes which I tossed away after wearing once only for a photo. I found happiness by moving out of the city, buying an old house, and connecting with my community of extraordinary women through writing. I also wrote a book about all of it. Writing is now what I “do”.

While no longer an influencer or involved in the fashion industry, some fashion houses I worked with still send me presents, invite me to shows, remember my birthday and send me holiday gifts. One of them is Dior. So, when they recently asked me to be featured in a campaign for Gem Dior in my persona as a writer, I happily agreed.

 I went to the city by train, dressed up in head-to-toe Dior, got glam hair and makeup, and went out with a fun team and photographer. Surprisingly, I had some kind of muscle memory for the modeling thing, and I was soon posing my way into bookstores and down subway station steps. There were no expectations about what I should write in a caption, what photos to choose from the array that they sent, only that I should express myself as a writer however I wanted to. I think I stayed true to the me I have become.

 Here’s the caption I wrote:

Writing, Rhythm and History

The words I write create a formation across the page that appears random and surely created by luck. I read the sentences aloud and find some irregular surfaces that trip my tongue. Yet my voice sings a singular rhythm despite the bumps. A flash of light caught my eye, and I look to the bracelet on my wrist, a gift from an old friend.

Today I am writing about fashion, history and affect. My bracelet, made of rectangles, at the moment I am aware of it, becomes an evocative object. One that prompts me to question and daydream. It helps me to think. It reminds me of the words that at first seem randomly placed on the page but have a beautiful rhythm at the end.

Now captivated, I discover in my research; the rectangles are an homage to history. Fashion houses that resist the passing of time and trends do so because they embrace the primacy of history and craft. This bracelet is no exception. The rectangles mimic the fabric swatches placed by Christian Dior on a large board in his atelier as he dreamed up the unique beauty of haute couture.

 Writing, rhythm and history. Fashion and affect. All conspire to create a gold circlet throwing sparks of light that shoot from my wrist and into my world.

 Coda

The days after the shoot, I am lost in nostalgic daydreams, when dressing up and photo shoots were part of my everyday life. Nostalgia can be a double-edged sword. You can think of it as a “memory of happiness”, times you had a life purpose and a remembrance that you have achieved your goals. Remembering times from the past that brought you joy can motivate you to create or re-find these moments in the present. However, nostalgia can also make you dissatisfied with your present. It can fuel regret and sadness about things that ended or did not turn out the way you wished. I am tottering here and I do not want to fall off this side of the edge. Regardless of your life experiences, turning out the way you hoped for, or not, looking back can also reveal how much you have grown over time. Here is where I think I will land in the “in-between” of nostalgia; while having made mistakes and losing myself for a time, I grew from it all. My time as Accidental Icon was the fertile soil that produced the beautiful gardens I walk in at this time of my life.

The shoot instigates yet another ambivalent struggle. I'm attracted to beautiful things, like the clothes and accessories I wore for this shoot, but these days I also feel guilty about this desire. I know now there are not so beautiful stories behind the making of beautiful things, yet I am so compelled to live a life surrounded by beauty. For those of you that share my ambivalence about this, I’ve discovered a wonderful book, “The Ugly History of Beautiful Things” by Katie Kelleher. She too walks in an in-between space, somewhere between the awe that beauty brings to our life and the destruction that can come in the wake of its manufacturing.

I get up for a stretch. I stand at the glass door in my lemon yellow kitchen and my eye is drawn to a series of rectangles forming a path that leads to my shed, my writing place. Right before you get to the door is a rectangle bordered with old stones that once paved the street where I live now. Last spring, I threw some wildflower seeds into this empty space and they are now a contained yet still randomly haphazard bed of flowers. There are blooms of every hue, dazzlingly beautiful as gemstones. Silken petals take my breath away and are soft when I bring them to my nose, fragile as a couture gown. In this moment I feel that all the beauty I need in my life are the rectangles that are here, right outside my back door.

Still working on my syllabus so stay tuned. The book I recommended in this post is a good one to add to my required reading list on braided essays. At least I completed this week’s assignment despite the busy week I had chasing a newly walking one-year old all over my house!

Also I’ve been remiss in not giving a big thank you to all of you that have pledged amounts you would spend on a paid subscription to support my writing. It’s motivating and inspiring for me to continue to post consistently and then when I have considered would could be value added, to take you up on your generous offers.

With gratitude always,

Lyn