Bottega is the name of the game in “It” bags at the moment — especially their coveted cassette bag, seen above — but it doesn’t stop there: woven bags and sandals throwing Bottega vibes have been cropping up all over, and at all pricepoints, too. Below, a few favorite finds in this vein…
NAGHEDI ST. BARTH’S TOTE(01.) VERY POPULAR WITH YOU MAGPIES — IT’S MADE OF WOVEN NEOPRENE SO A GREAT SUMMER BAG FOR MOMS ON THE GO / BEACH-BOUND BEAUTIES)
BOTTEGA LIDO FLAT SANDALS(08.) — THE SQUARE TOE IS VERY AVANT GARDE / ANTICIPATING-A-BIG-TREND RIGHT NOW; YOU CAN GET THE LOOK FOR LESS WITH THESE(03.), THESE, OR THESE (UNDER $20!)
P.P.P.S. To Mr. Magpie: “…Put differently: I am only half living when we are apart. The other half is suspended in anticipatory conversation, waiting for the moment when I can fill you in. I did not know this about marriage when I cried through our “I dos” ten years ago today. I could not have imagined, then, the way we now lay ourselves bare to one another, soul to soul, no space between us.”
By: Jen Shoop
Sephora just launched its Spring Savings event (tiered access to a discount starts today — 20% off for VIB Rouge), and if you take nothing else away from this post, please consider using the promotion to treat yourself to Westman Atelier’s foundation stick, which is definitely one of the best new beauty products I’ve tried in the last few years. (Just make sure to hydrate your skin well first.) I also love (!) their blush stick and highlighter stick in the “lit” (totally colorless) color and wear them every single day. The highlighter stick adds dewiness rather than shine — it’s an incredible product. I always get excited when I can get these prestige beauty products at a little discount since they so rarely go on sale. And if you are expecting, consider using the promotion towards Clarins Body Tonic! I have turned no less than twenty mom friends onto this. They say stretch marks are mainly genetic, but this stuff made my itchy pregnant belly feel so much better — deeply hydrating! — and, hey, I’ll take a gamble on something if it might help avoid stretch marks. (I have none!) I just updated my shop page to include a section dedicated to beauty showcasing all my favorite products for these recs and others!
+Drunk Elephant C-Firma Vitamin C Serum. I talked a little bit in my last installment of Honest Reviews that I haven’t yet found a vitamin C serum that I love. I appreciate the results of the many different brands I have tried (all of them have noticeably brightened my skin — I liken it to “turning on the lights upstairs”), but I am still on the search for one with an ideal consistency/application. My sister happened to gift me this serum (she loves all things Drunk Elephant) and while I think the results are great, I find the scent off-putting. (Read the reviews — this is a common complaint. Some describe the scent as “hot dog water” — haha! To me it smelled more like over-ripe or rotting vegetables. Regardless, yuck! The scent does dissipate within a few minutes, but…!). That said, Drunk Elephant is a clean beauty line, so that was a compelling selling point. Regardless, I think I’ll be testing La Roche Posay’s formula or Biossance’s serum next on the recommendation of several Magpies. My bottom line remains the same: vitamin C has worked wonders on my skin and I will continue testing different formulas until I find the holy grail. (I still think this is the best budget buy version you can get — just as good as the more expensive ones I’ve tried. Formula is a touch tacky/sticky but no scent and easier to apply than runnier formulas I’ve tried.)
+Youth to the People Superberry Mask. My current regimen is to use differin (retinoid) two nights a week and my beloved glycolic acid pads two nights a week, use an overnight mask one night, and nothing on the other two nights of the week. This has been a good pattern for my skin. I have been testing this hydrating mask (also from a clean beauty line). I do think it hydrates nicely, but it almost makes me feel like I’m going to bed with butter smeared all over my face — ha! I’ll continue to use it when my skin is feeling dry, but I have preferred other overnight masks — especially the now-retired Peter Thomas Roth rose stem cell mask, may it rest in peace.
+Hanacure Nano-Emulsion Moisturizer. A really, really good lightweight moisturizer. Unscented, a delight to apply (a tiny little pump of this rather thin moisturizer moisturizes my entire face and neck wonderfully), and surprisingly hydrating. This will be my new go-to summer moisturizer. (Last summer, I used Avene, which I thought was very good but I now prefer Hanacure to it. It feels to me just a tiny bit easier to apply and more hydrating.)
+IGK Thirsty Girl Leave-In Conditioner. I think I’ve written about this a number of times, but never in an honest review. This spray conditioner is SO good. My stylist used it before blow-drying my hair and I immediately went home and ordered it for myself. It smells like heaven and applies like a hairspray (it’s aerosolized), which feels more foolproof since you can cover more surface area with a single spritz. It REALLY conditions hair — hair feels so soft afterwards. I think this has been a game changer in my styling with heat tools, too — I get the absolute best result when I layer this on over a heat protectant.
A few items on my wishlist at the moment:
+Olaplex No. 3 Hair Perfector. I have read about this stuff for years — women swear by it! Since I have been blow-drying my hair every other day (and color-treating it for years now), I feel like my hair might need a little love, and this promises “strengthen the hair from within, reducing breakage and improving its look and feel.” I know there are many Magpies who adore this stuff.
+Dyson AirWrap. I’ll admit that as much as I love my Revlon One-Step, I’d love to jump on the Dyson bandwagon. I know many of you love Dyson hair products but somehow I just can’t bring myself to bite the bullet. Sephora’s promotion has led me to deposit this into my cart and then remove it no less than five times…
+Isle of Paradise Tanning Drops. Another Magpie reader favorite. I have been afraid of tanning products since my early 20s, when I overindexed on this beauty category and regret the photo evidence. However, so many of you swear by mixing in just a drop or two into your moisturizer to build a gradual, believable tan…
+Saie Mascara. Another clean beauty line that people are going crazy about — my Instagram friend Nan has been raving about this specific brand for a long, long time and I often find our perspectives on cosmetics/skincare align.
*Image above via Vincenzo Dascanio. This has nothing to do with our shopping goals below, but the picture left me weak in the knees. What vision this event designer has!
Q: I’m looking for a 30th birthday dress. I’ll be 14 weeks pregnant with my first, so I’m expecting I’ll be in that awkward phase where I don’t quite have a bump but won’t look great in something form fitting. Would love to hear your suggestions!!
A: Congratulations! You might find some good picks in this roundup of maternity dresses, especially since most of them are non-maternity and therefore would work well in the early stages of pregnancy, but a couple of dresses that are on my personal shopping list that would also work:
Q: Round or oval dining table that will seat six and work everyday for children to go with Henry Link cathedral chairs I just snagged locally for light/bright dining space that is not formal but not casual.
A: What a great score! I immediately imagined a pedestal table like this. Pottery Barn has lots of similar styles with different finishes, including marble, but something about that weathered gray strikes me as ultra-versatile and a perfect blend of formal and informal. It’s not the solemnity of polished wood, and it’s not the informality of painted white wood.
P.S. If you’re shopping for other parts of your home, I feel like a lot of the picks in this roundup of furniture finds walk a similar line between formal and informal.
Q: Outfits/shirts for a two year old girl and five year old boy for photographic portraits. Timeless, not too formal, and not too casual. I want the kids’ faces to stand out, not the clothing and accessories. Most of our photographer’s clients have worn white. I think my children tend to look best in shades of blue. And of course they should look cohesive so they display well as a pair.
A: Get thee to Jacadi! Jacadi has beautiful pieces that are not too fussy but still traditional. This scalloped collar dress might be just the ticket. Interesting but not distracting — I find the scale of the details on these clothes more demure and less exaggerated than many other classic children’s brands. Then you could go with these trousers and a shirt like this (or a solid-colored white oxford) for your little man. If you want something with a little more interest, check out Bellabliss — something like this dress maybe? They also tend to have great, crisp-looking clothes that aren’t too fancy/fussy.
P.S. There are more blue and white finds for all members of the family here.
Q: Honeymoon staples, warm weather!
A: Oo la la! Congratulations! You’ll need a few great swimsuits — I especially love this Marysia (look for less with this) for a newlywed and I adore this style from Alexandra Miro — and some easy caftans/sundresses to throw on over a swimsuit for post-swim/post-beach lunch. A few options I like:
For footwear, I like the idea of these pearl-studded sandals, which could be paired with a dress in the evenings or a swimsuit in the mornings, although I can’t do the beach without flip flops (and I generally hate flip flops). I have found these to be the absolute best. Very low-profile and they last forever despite the reasonable price!
Then, you’ll need a couple of fun evening dresses for dinner dates with your new husband! I bought myself a pale blue D&G corset dress I’d been lusting after for my honeymoon trousseau (this was 2010…) and I felt like a million bucks in it. Go for the fun date night look you’ve always dreamed of! It’s the most romantic time of life! I think a fun hot pink dress like this, or a bolded printed dress like this, would be perfect. And you can’t go wrong with a pretty LWD!
Enjoy!
Q: A long, casual but still pretty dress for engagement pictures outside at a farm setting.
Q: Dining room table to use as a conference table for the office. Should seat six.
A: I feel like something simple and unfussy, like this style, might be the ticket. It feels more work-appropriate than some other styles I’ve seen. This more expensive style also has a stately vibe to it — like people might sit around it closing deals? — that could be right.
Q: High-waisted shorts of any kind.
A: These SEA shorts have been flying and a few of you have sent pictures of your cute selves in them to me — they are SO chic on! If the denim isn’t your speed, there are fun florals from Endless Rose and Jonathan Simkhai to consider. And Sandro has some great shorts out, too! And for under $20, these linen-style high-waisted shorts look pretty compelling (in white, paired with a white linen button-down — YES — or in black, paired with a striped tee).
A: Hi! I am always drawn to the ones that have rattan-like finishes — they add warmth and texture and almost seem like decor! (This one is good.). I have also seen this used in a professionally-designed bedroom and it looked great. This handsome, sleek one gets rave reviews — the Cadillac of ceiling fans! — and comes in different finishes.
Who else wore claw clips similar to the style seen above in her teenage years? I’d more or less forgotten they existed until recently, when I ordered this $13.99 pack of four and now have no idea how I’ve lived for so long without them. Handy for pulling hair up while overheatedly scrubbing the dishes or washing my face before bed at night — but without the telling crimp of a hair elastic. (I also really like the size of the set I bought — works for pulling all hair up onto top of head or just doing a little half-up-half-down situation.)
A few other recent purchases and discoveries from Amazon I had to share:
+A tiny stiff-bristled stain brush. Hill managed to near-ruin the tiny seersucker suit I’d bought him for Easter and I decided I needed a new implement to help with our recent leveling-up to constant-clothing-destruction-mode. Little boys! (More laundry favorites here.)
+Ateco cake tester. I can’t remember if it was an interview with Christina Tosi of MilkBar or an episode from The Chef Show, but at some point over the last year, a revered baker mentioned how important inexpensive cake testers are to the craft. I remember whoever it was using the tester several times in the course of a brief showcase. Over Easter weekend, I made cupcakes that left me inserting the dull end of a knife into the middle of one to test for doneness and thought — “you know? maybe I don’t need to ruin one of the 18 cupcakes in this way every time I bake?” Cake tester it is.
+Kitchen gloves. I loved those flocked Mr. Clean Bliss gloves but there must be a national shortage because I can’t find them anywhere at a reasonable price. (On Amazon, I’ve seen a single pair go for like $18! NO!). I’ve tested a couple of other brands and these are the closest I can find to the real thing. I like the soft lining and the lack of latex scent. They are also durable — a pair will last a good month of nightly hand-washing.
+Plastic envelopes. I was going crazy with piles of paper all over the place that were not yet ready to be filed away in my file storage boxes because they are still in-use and need to be easy to access, so I recently snapped up these inexpensive, differently colored envelopes to help organize my life a bit. I have one folder pertaining to our house hunt; another for the children’s schooling; another for medical papers; another for items like pre-purchased timed tickets to the Zoo and other upcoming reservations; another for items we need on our trips down to DC (checkbook, train tickets, etc). Having them all in color coded envelopes in a tidy stack on my desk has made me feel a small measure of control during a time of many moving parts. (More chic desktop finds here.)
+Cropped running tank. I mentioned this recently, but I find a lot of inexpensive fitness finds that are inspired by other brands like Lululemon to be sorely lacking in quality. This cropped running tank is a true exception. Remove the cups and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how soft and durable the material is, and how flattering the cut! I am in love!
+Toddler chopsticks. Mini loves eating noodles with these. She has the shark style and I just ordered micro the t-rex set.
+Travel bottles! I actually think these would also be good for decanting items into a diaper bag, i.e., sunscreen, sanitizer, diaper cream, bug spray, etc, but also amazing for travel. I know it sounds a little crazy-person-ish, but having each bottle (or each folder) a different color really helps with organization!
+Montessori mom moment here: I just ordered Hill these tiny silver pitchers to practice pouring after I saw a fellow Montessori mom present her eighteen-month-old son with a DIY breakfast tray: a bowl of oatmeal, a few small ramekins with toppings like raisins and fruit, and a tiny pitcher of milk. The little boy very calmly, independently, went about preparing his own bowl, and it was frankly amazing to watch. Very Montessori to promote those kind of fine motor skills via practical life exercises. I figure we can use the pitchers for lots of different activities, from sensory play trays to oatmeal breakfasts.
+These hem-stitched napkins are classic and just go with any tablescape. I love the price — they look like there were inherited from a great-great aunt but cost $40 for the set!
*Above image is not of Mount Koressos mentioned below, but when I came across it, I was reminded of the photographs I’ve seen of it, and the entire nest of thoughts below came tumbling out.
My sister and brother-in-law came over for Easter Sunday dinner. They had declined to attend Thanksgiving with us just a few months back because we were too skittish about the spike in COVID cases at the time to share a single meal.
We have been in and out of Manhattan a couple of times in the last few weeks viewing potential homes in D.C. after spending nearly a full sixteen months in the city, with only a one-week reprieve on Long Island last July.
We have seen my parents and Mr. Magpie’s parents several times thanks to those brief visits to Washington after not seeing them — and the way my father-in-law is always early to the train station, and my mother is always perfumed, and my father is never without a handful of papers and envelopes to pass along with my initials in thick black sharpie at the top — for over a year.
Slowly, then quickly, more and more of my siblings and friends and cousins and acquaintances — healthy young people in their 20s and 30s — have gotten their vaccines.
Yesterday, Mr. Magpie and I got ours.
And, possibly accelerated by the frenzy of activity around finding a home and moving, what felt like quagmire now runs swiftly underfoot, as though a thin trickle of water has made its way through a stagnant pool and is now racing, rushing, crashing into a downhill stream turned river. That thin trickle was hope. It was the beginning of a prayer, the headwater of a Hail Mary.
A few years ago, my parents made a pilgrimage to Mount Koressos in Ephesus, Turkey. My father has mentioned the excursion a handful of times with a startling, spine-straightening solemnity:
“When we got there, your mother knelt and cried.”
My mother is not a dramatic person. When I was weepy with hormones and shock after the birth of my daughter, blubbering in my recovery bed, she took my hand and patted it a couple of times. “Now Jennifer, what is it?” Something about the question, and the way she busied herself arranging my pillows, asking whether I wanted this or that to eat, jolted me out of my tearful haze and returned me to the present. When my mother is moved, she will dab at her eyes and clear her throat and somehow, elegantly, without denigrating the intensity of the moment, emerge with a smile and walk right into the next thing — “Did you want a sandwich for lunch?” A high school girlfriend of mine, whom I have elsewhere presented as Amelia, always envied my mother’s poise and perspective in such moments, the way she could regain composure and reset the table in a matter of seconds. I remember remarking on the proximity between a graveyard and a playground while on that other-worldly trip to Annecy, and that observation fed into my comment that afternoon that “I keep waiting for the day when I can be like a grown woman about these things. Like, Elaine [my mother’s name] would be able to move on.” As in: my mother would be able to observe but not be derailed by monkey bars over tombstones. She has a way — conditioned by experience and time — of keeping herself moving.
So this vision of my mother prostrated in tears is irreconcilable. But my father has repeated this story so many times, and with so little variation, that it must be true. So there she was, kneeling and crying at the House of The Virgin Mary in Ephesus.
I have always felt a special devotion to The Virgin Mary. I have even, on afternoons passed in hazy reverie, when I am wraithlike with imagining and thought, pondered the symmetry of attending a grade school called Annunciation and then a high school called Visitation — the first two consecutive joyful mysteries of the rosary and both centered upon the figure of Mary. It was the rosary we took turns reading over the crackly P.A. system at my grade school: it was Hail Mary my trembling nine-year-old voice broadcast while I stood on a small stool in a plaid kilt, tentative but sedate. I was cast as Mary in the Christmas pageant in eighth grade, a slipshod production where the angels came out too early and someone’s candle caught fire with a wig in the vestibule, but I took the role seriously, arranging my face into one of solemnity on the altar. Mary has sat with me through the hardest days of my life. Her prayer is always at the tip of my tongue. When I wrote about my panic attack, I neglected to mention that when my mother came to me in the waiting room of the ER that afternoon, she squeezed my hands and said: “Hail Mary, full of Grace, the Lord is with thee…” And again, when I found myself alone in a taxi cab in pre-term labor on the way to Mount Sinai on the Upper East Side, it was my mother’s calm voice on the line: “…blessed art though amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” And it was Hail Mary, too, at the beautiful candle-lit event that used to be held in the manicured green “quad” at my high school, when classmates and their mothers would form the shape of a rosary, each candle-wielding participant a “bead” alit by her neighbor, and my mother would stand with me, and I would occasionally find a lump in my throat as I witnessed something I could not put into words, and I suppose it was the first rivulet of reassurance that has carried me through the darknesses we have borne.
I guess what I am saying is that it is true: it begins with a prayer, and it ends with something laughably, improbably trivial, like the splash of champagne that spilled over the edge of a coupe on my Easter Sunday table as I sat with family after months of separation. Both are reassurances that life — that love — will find a way. It is my mother kneeling and crying at the House of Mary, and it is my mother calling me on the phone to ask: “Did you want me to pack you some snacks for the train ride home? I know you like Cheez-its.” It is the expansiveness of faith and the preening minutiae of motherhood, and one way or the other, we have made it.
+If you have a little girl, please look at BellaBliss’ 40% off spring sale — you need this precious swing set. Mini owned it in a different colorway and it was maybe my favorite outfit of her second year of life.
+Stunning spring plates — another reason why going with solid white is a good idea; you could layer one of these on top for a dramatic tabletop moment!
I often receive queries from brides-to-be asking what to put on a registry. Below, I’ve selected all the items I would register for if I were newly engaged. Many of these items are all-around great items for any household, whether you’re upgrading or refreshing your china cabinet, setting up your first apartment, or looking for staples that you never received when you were engaged. Note that I have limited my choices to items at Bloomingdale’s, Pottery Barn, and Williams-Sonoma. I believe it’s fairly standard to register at two places, with the possibility of adding a third for formal china (i.e., Scully & Scully — though Bloomie’s carries a lot of the same high-end china brands), and these shops have almost everything you could want to register for.
On the subject of china: we only registered for formal china and decided to make do with the everyday dishes we already owned. If I could do it again, I would register for a full set of everyday china as well as formal china, but this in part depends on how big your wedding is, and also how expensive the formal china you select is. Formal china from traditional, high-end brands like Spode, Herend, and Bernardaud can be outlandishly expensive — I have been invited to weddings where a single dinner plate was $395! In short, there is some mental math you have to do — there are only so many guests.
And when in doubt, go with white everyday china. We have gotten bored with and gradually retired several sets of colored plates. White shows food much better anyway.
Personally, I would advise focusing on and even over-registering for items related to your china (i.e., multiples of serving bowls that match your set) and glassware cabinet (i.e., multiple sets of wine glasses, drinking glasses, etc.) and skip some of the less expensive kitchen tools you might feel compelled to add to “round everything out.” Frankly, you can find a lot of the best kitchen implements — I’m thinking of things like wooden spoons, whisks, spatulas, peelers — inexpensively at Amazon and just order for yourself. (As an example, I strongly prefer $4 Kuhn Rikon peelers to more expensive stainless steel models from OXO and Rosle. I would much rather have received an extra cereal bowl in my china pattern than an overpriced peeler!) I also think no one really wants to buy a couple of $8 items for a bride and groom — I find guests gravitate towards one meaty, substantial item, like a towel set, a place setting, a serving dish. In my opinion, there is simply something more appealing, more timeless, more elegant about buying a $30 serving dish for a new bride versus a $30 salad spinner, too. So I would spend a little time thinking about what items you would prefer to purchase privately yourself. (I once saw a toilet plunger on someone’s registry. I understand practicality but !!!) In short, you will not find a lot of smaller kitchen items on this list, and intentionally so.
Last note: I would encourage you to add a handful of bigger ticket items, like a vacuum, knife set, or Vitamix, because I often went in on bigger gifts like these with my college girlfriends.
+Servewear: Register for as many of the coordinating serving pieces as you can find for your china set(s) — even duplicates. My mother-in-law gave us multiples of serving dishes that coordinated with our china and I am forever grateful — makes entertaining so much easier. This size of serving bowl is perfect for so many things, the footed bowl is lovely, and this platter would be ideal for anything from slices of steak next to a heap of roasted potatoes to cookies for dessert! Registering for a couple of plain white serving dishes or bowls is always a good idea, too.
+Cutlery: PB has several attractive, timeless stainless steel sets you will never tire of and that will last forever. I like this Georgia style and this bamboo style. Whatever you do, register for a set of Laguiole steak knives! Beautiful and we have used them at least once a week since we tied the knot.
*We have a couple of plastic and ceramic mixing bowl sets, but I think stainless steel is the way to go. These are sturdy, can be placed over heat (i.e., can serve as a double boiler / be placed over simmering water to keep potatoes warm), will not scratch, and are lighter-weight (and more durable) than ceramic. If you prefer ceramic (convenient because they can double as serveware in informal settings), these are nice.
ALL-CLAD POTS AND PANS* (EITHER A SET OR SELECT THE SIZES YOU WOULD USE MOST OFTEN — AT A MINIMUM, A FRY PAN, A SMALL SAUCEPAN, A 4 QT SAUCEPAN, AND SOMETHING BIG ENOUGH TO BOIL PASTA IN)
*I also love (!) the look of copper cookware, but it is much more expensive (and requires more maintenance to keep shiny) than stainless steel. We ended up registering for just one Mauviel piece in copper — a saute pan — and have slowly added additional pieces ourselves over the years. If you are of a similar mind, I would also recommend registering for one Mauviel piece but focusing the rest on more reasonably priced All-Clad workhorses.
+Appliances (I would select a handful you really will get use out of — i.e., I have friends who would never make use of an electric kettle or stand mixer, but would live by the coffee machine):
TOASTER (NOTE DIMENSIONS – HAVE HEARD THESE ARE SURPRISINGLY BIG)
+Glassware: I did a complete roundup of all my favorite glasses (for wine, cocktails, water) here, but if you are narrowing in on just one or two places to register, Pottery Barn is a good place for nearly everything you’ll need. I love our Schott Zwiesel wine glasses and these drinking glasses are very similar to the CB2 ones I own and love.
+Miscellaneous. I find people enjoy giving the one-off items on a registry. Here are a few great additions to any home:
One of my favorite ways to elevate or refresh a living space is to add a couple of throw pillows in a designer fabric. Much less expensive than reupholstering an entire sofa or chair in the fabric, which I currently find wanton given the age of my children (home decor has a life span of a couple of years with small children around), but still roundly capable of packing a dramatic and high-end punch. (And most of the Etsy sellers below will make the pillows one-sided with a solid fabric on the back, cutting the price further. You can also buy a few of the designer pillows and then mix with simpler solids, like this honeycomb style, this linen style, or this velvet.) This is also a great way to upgrade simple, affordable white bedding — add a bolster pillow in a designer fabric.
If you take nothing else away from this post, though, please note that when buying the insert for a pillow cover, you should buy one 2″ up in size from the dimensions of the pillow cover — e.g., if you buy a 20″ pillow cover, buy 22″ pillows. Trust me. It will work. You will remove the pillow from the box and look at me with suspicion — this will never fit! — but trust, trust! This is the secret to full, happy pillows.
Also, while not for everyone, this flutter slipcovered sofa from CB2 looks ultra high-end/custom to me, especially paired with a couple of the pillows below.
My other strategy? Keeping an eye out in the sale section of home furnishing shops I like. You can often find really great deals on pillows for some reason — it seems like sale-section furniture is always only a modest price break, but pillows? You can find outrageous discounts! Consider, for example, these great S&L pillows for $34.99!
Inwardly, I’d crouch in defense, ready to spring, returning with something about good foundational skills and a “besides, I’m passionate about it,” all delivered with a practiced airiness and a quick change of subject because I was nothing if not polite and diverting in my early 20s. I always thought less of the enquirer after such exchanges, both on counts of indelicacy and what I perceived to be obtuseness. A combative part of me also understood that in fact very few of my classmates knew what they were going to “do” with a degree, period, and I therefore found the question snarky and unnecessarily pointed.
I understand things differently now. I perceive in those conversations a blaring misalignment in expectations of higher education, an awareness borne of age and seasoned by my years in the non-profit world, attempting in small and, sadly, ineffectual ways to improve educational access and attainment for underserved communities. What is the purpose, after all, of a degree in higher education? What should it be? Job training? The cultivation of good — or if not good, informed — citizens? Free intellectual inquiry? Knowledge for knowledge’s sake? Specialized skills? Generalized literacy with the status quo of one’s times? Etc. My answer to this question has evolved over time. There are too many inputs to land in one place, and many such perches are unfair to those unable to afford college. And so my view remains permanently unfixed, somewhere between the joy of reading F. Scott Fitzgerald for the first time (“greenswards“!) and the transactionality of a stamp on a piece of paper that might permit me to, for example, operate heavy and specialized machinery. All I know is that I would probably dissuade my children from pursuing an advanced degree in the humanities. “Business, a minor in business,” my Dad used to urge — not so loudly that I’d listen, but enough that I remember and regret. I recognize the irony in my rue, because every suspect decision I have made has, improbably, enabled this spacewalk I call a career, but I find myself hoping for a more straightforward path for my own children. A friend of mine, commenting on struggling through a particularly circuitous time in her professional life, noted: “I just woke up one day and asked, ‘Does it have to be this hard?’ And the answer was no.” Something pinged inside me. Not that I have endured a hard or troubled professional life by a long shot (in fact, I consider my own both garishly lucky and deeply meaningful), but just this: there could have been more linear paths to a livelihood, fraught with less humiliation and self-doubt. Paved roads instead of winding dirt ones. Besides, my brother — a tenured professor — informs me that higher education will never be what it was when we were in our late teens. And so there are different matters for my children to consider that never dawned on me.
All to say: I have gone back through those college exchanges and grimaced at my reaction — in all cases save for one. A friend of mine, a smart one — one with whom I enjoyed sparring and found companionable intelligence and open-mindedness — had stared, blinkingly, at me, after I had stated: “You can’t just read whatever you want into a book. There are always many plausible interpretations, but there are also incorrect ones.” If an English major had taken me to task on this point, I would have respected the upbraiding. There are valid theoretical tacks that would handily unseat such claims. But his reaction lacked such theoreticizations.
“Isn’t…that…what you do in English? Read whatever you want into the books you’re reading?” He said this slowly, in befuddlement, as if I were an idiot.
I saw, then, how flimsy my chosen discipline appeared to him — how spineless, immaterial. He might respect my intelligence, but he would never respect my field. Where I saw tools, procedures, the unyielding scaffolding of Marxist or feminist or close reading criticism, the fact that the majority of success in a degree in English rests upon good persuasive writing and a lawyerly attentiveness to detail (how can you string together metrical feet, narrative design, choice of setting and de-code such minutiae such that they support a thesis suggested by the text?), he saw a bunch of dreamers braiding hair and reading a lot of something into nothing.
I gaped back at him, perceiving all at once the lack of prestige and meaning my degree carried in his eyes. I wanted to invite him into one of my seminars, to watch him flounder in confusion at the intensity of thought and meaningful conversation my classmates brought to bear. I wanted to prove myself, to prove English to him. But instead I half-heartedly groped to explain that he was wrong, changed the subject, and then laid in bed that night and decided that humility was the best course of action. From that day on, I’d laugh along with the inquiries about where my degree would take me: “I know, I know. I have no idea what I’m going to do.” I’d disparage my degree when given the chance: “I mean, I’m just an English major. You’re doing actual stuff.” I eagerly turned conversations about career choice back toward those around me.
I have long since dispensed of squeamishness when talking about my chosen career. I am admittedly shy about it, but I do not stumble over the facts: “I am a writer,” I say. I used to twitch with apology, stammer with explanation. But I write for a living. That is the bald truth of it. In moments of unflattering self-absorption, I wonder whether my friend’s opinion of English as a discipline has changed over time, whether because of me or not. Does he still dismiss the field as wool-gathering? In truth, sometimes I have a general appreciation as to where he was coming from. I approach the world with a sponge and chalk, absorbing, drawing, erasing, re-drawing, leaving a permeable white cloud around my lines. And he, and others like him — my many friends who are doctors, lawyers, finance people — bear a chisel, or surgical scalpel, or any number of implements that make material, physical contact with the world.
But is it fair to say I “practice English” anyway? Or did I cultivate good roots there, and then stumble into stretches of meaningful work elsewhere, and all of it — every non-linear diversion along the way — brought me to this moment, perhaps itself a pit-stop on the road to something else? Or maybe I was born a writer and would have landed here without the degrees? Or maybe my stint in the start-up world enabled me to pursue this second career in a way that would not have been previously possible, and so what I do for a living has little to do with the English degrees I earned at UVA and Georgetown? Or maybe, or maybe, or maybe —
I can say this, though: the or maybes is the great gift of a degree in English, the vindication I might offer my friend, should we ever revisit the topic: the accommodation of a multitude of narrative possibilities. English trained me to look at a single word and ask: “but why this one?” and to recognize a certain rhyme scheme and ask “what if it were another?” I am forever shaped by the way those questions both exact and forgive. They taught me to respect what is there on the page while wandering down the side path, investigating the alley behind, poking around in the shrubs — a sleuth-like procedure inherently blessed with both pragmatism and possibility.
+These channeled liner coats are great for transitions between seasons. I have been wearing mine a lot the last few weeks.
+These clear and inexpensive makeup cases would be great for travel — whether for your own cosmetics or baby gear or even your traveling medicine cabinet (I always set aside a pouch filled with everything from sunscreen and bug spray to bandaids and benadryl.). I can’t overstate the convenience of clear pouches while traveling — makes everything so easy to find!
+And these travel toiletry canisters would be amazing for decanting your shampoos, etc. Love that they come in different colors — again, makes things very easy to locate!
+Speaking of “well-cut black,” this under-$40 tee dress would be amazing for the first half of a pregnancy. Loose-fit, easy to pair with sandals or sneaks, etc. Would also be great for those of us trailing little children! Easy to wear and launder, moves nicely, non-precious.
+Some great sale finds on Beyond Yoga fitness gear here. These racerback cropped bras are seriously the most comfortable sports bra I’ve ever worn. I also bought these $20 cropped tanks and they are amazingly comfortable, too. I have been generally underwhelmed by Amazon fitness finds, but these are good (just remove the cups!).
My parents owned a time-share in Hot Springs, Virginia when I was a teenager, and we spent long weekends there in the spring and always for Easter. There was a beautiful white clapboard chapel close by, and parishioners would pack into the narrow pews and the room would grow uncomfortably stuffy and loud. I registered every rustle of a dress and creak of the floorboards, every stifled cough and stern whisper. It was a distracting way to celebrate Easter. I couldn’t tell you a thing the priest preached — now or then. One Easter, packed in like a sardine, I started to feel woozy and tugged at my mother’s sweater. My face must have been pale, because she took one look at me and gestured for me to go outside. I clambered over my siblings, whose heads bobbed up in curiosity-turned-jealousy, slipped down the aisle, and tumbled into the deliciously cool air outside. The sky was a determined bright blue, the parking lot behind the Church vacant, and I stood there alone in my floral Easter dress, breathing in the leafy silence and cool of Hot Springs in early April. The memory emerges now as an easy metaphor for today, this holiest of holidays: the release into daylight, the morning blooming like redemption incarnate.
I just can’t help myself when I come across a new LWD. I swear half of my closet consists of little white dresses, but I find them incredible easy and versatile workhorses! They are literal blank canvases and I can add fun patterned shoes or statement earrings in a color of my preference and totally transform the vibe.
I come across a lot of cheesy quotes that bring a half-smile, half-grimace to my face, but I loved this one, especially the note about laughter, schmaltziness be-damned. Someone recently shared her opinion that the secret to a happy marriage is remembering and celebrating why you fell in love in the first place. When I thought back to 18-year-old Jen meeting 20-year-old Landon, I thought of how genteel and attentive he was — so different from so many of the boys I knew at that time — but also, once I got to know him, how much he made me laugh. We have so many strange inside jokes accrued over years and years of being together, some unexpectedly wicked and absurd and juvenile, and it is not unusual for him to leave me rolling on the floor with laughter with a single look over the heads of our children. There are some nights, after the children are down, that I swear we are laughing for two hours straight with brief breaks for dinner and conversation before retiring for bed.
So here’s to laughing triple this weekend and all weekends.
+People keep raving about these Footmates sandals because of the velcro closure. They look very similar to the Sun Sans mini has worn her entire life, but I am intrigued by the velcro! Great colors too.
With the exception of today, which started at a frosty 25 degrees here in Manhattan, I have not needed my heavy duty winter coat for a couple of weeks. What a joy! A couple of great jackets/cardigans/toppers for this transition to spring…
FOR A SPORTIER TAKE, I COULDN’T LIVE WITHOUT MY FIELD JACKETS (I HAVE A FEW BY DIFFERENT BRANDS), AND THIS IS A GREAT STYLE, AS IS THIS(05.) IF YOU WANT A LONGER LENGTH — AND I AM DRAWN TO THIS COTTON ANORAK (06.) AS A LAYERING PIECE FOR SATURDAY MORNINGS IN THE PARK
P.P.S. ICYMI, this is the $20 dress nearly all Magpies will be wearing this summer. More great affordable everyday dresses for the season here. And this sunhat has been tremendously popular, too — get the Sarah Bray look for less.
