I've Had this Beret Since I was 8 Years Old

men's American Apparel jumper (as dress), VPL coat via Bib Tuck, vintage beret, Cooperative flats, Foley & Corinna backpack, Nettie Kent choker, ID necklace by Jake Alfonzo, By Boe x De Lune eye charm with a broken key I found
Briefly mentioned in my last post that I'm reading The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan, but due to my somewhat restless hunger and attraction to things that immediately pique my fancy, I'm also simultaneously reading Patti Smith's Just Kids. I'm glad I've got these two pieces going at the same time, because while Sagan answers questions regarding the vastness of human achievement through nature, Smith encourages me to take that knowledge and reflect it inward. This has unearthed a hunger to create and frolic even though I've been feeling a crippling uncertainty that I've kept inside for months since my college graduation. By uncertainty, I mean many things, but a lot of it stems from a general sense of feeling lost and timid in this world of clothing as I work towards my independence- this world of images and egos, of craft and scene. I love working in vintage; I'm learning how to assess history and create a value from it, and I adore meeting wildly creative artists through blogging & the preserved ties to my art school education, but I have also been feeling lonely.
I bring my current reads up in regards to this get-up because this here is the kind of thing I used to wear as a kid: ballet flats with oversized boys' sweaters and jackets. It was easy, and my mom, who dressed me meticulously, strived for gender neutrality. I've had this black wool beret since I was like, 8 years old, and it was too big on me then. My mother would always encourage me to be playful yet elegant, and for the first time in months, I've wanted to wear lipstick again. Patti Smith's retelling of her bond with Robert Mappelthrope and the bliss they shared with the little pleasures life afforded them has me wanting to dress in costumes to make me feel beautiful.
Along with wearing pieces made by two dear friends, Jake Alfonzo and Nettie Kent, I also fashioned and wore a necklace out of pendants that I consider to be personal amulets: an oxidized silver eye I've designed with Annika Inez of By Boe, with a broken key I found months ago on a lonesome, head-clearing walk through Williamsburg. Wearing them together has brought me a sense of comfort. They represent a duality, both imagined and physically apparent. I love the clash of the scratched, golden bronze of the broken key against the aged silver of the open eye- the two together tinkling brightly as I walk, marrying my insecurities with feelings of belonging somewhere despite them.
Carl Sagan wonders of our ancestors, who hunted and roamed the grounds of our ancient birthplaces and descended from the treetops we took shelter in:
“...after we returned to the savannas and abandoned the trees, did we long for those great graceful leaps and ecstatic moments of weightlessness in the shafts of sunlight of the forest roof?”
I didn't realize it until recently, but I've been desperately yearning for some spark to create- all for the sake of replenishing a dulled part of me that wants to surround myself in a world of my own making. Obviously my blog hasn't illustrated the old found photographs I've found in junk stores and have tacked up on my wall or the little trinkets I've put out in the open; all gestures that have been done by others before me, but I'll get to that soon I'm sure. In the meanwhile, I've been sharing little films and snippets of new daily nonsense on here. I don't know where all of this is taking me, but of course, books have helped me file my feelings.

Jesus, I really did not expect this post to end up a confession of sorts, I started out just wanting to talk about how people kept asking me if I was a mime all day, but if you got this far in reading, you have my gratitude.

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