I love clothes, I love fashion. Yes, I’ll say it, I have a passion for fashion. Always have and, I predict, always will.
I was a teenager in the 80s, the days of Molly Ringwald and repurposing clothes. I remember taking a red pair of pants, dyeing them black, sewing the legs together to make it a skirt, pairing it with combat boots, a button down shirt (and a broach), and voila, new outfit. In the 90s, I have fond memories of spending hours at the mall with my BFF. We’d come home and compare our purchases. The one who found the deal of the day was crowned ‘the winner.’ In my young adulthood, I had a short stint in retail, but my paychecks would go to buying clothes with my employee discount, hence the short stint. As an adult, I would often buy clothes for a special (or sometimes just a regular) event and it would later hang in my closet ... indefinitely. Enough is enough, my carbon footprint on my clothing habits are downright embarrassing. The fashion industry is one of the major polluting industries in the world. The industry produces about 10% of global carbon dioxide emissions and uses about 1.5 trillion liters of water annually. Thrifting: Enter Marie Kondo, the KonMari method, and her book Tidying Up. I learned to keep only items that ‘spark joy’ and fold my clothes just so and that they line up like colorful fabric soldiers in my drawers. Virgo girl’s dream! Bags of garments were being delivered to the thrift stores by the truckloads (I might be exaggerating a little, maybe). Now I’m curious, what happens to the clothes that don’t sell at the thrift stores? In a perfect world, donated clothing gets purchased and loved by someone new, and the proceeds go to paying employees, costs of running the store, and whatever charity the store is aligned with. In a not-so-perfect world, the unsold clothes may end up in a landfill (400 million pounds of clothing ends up in landfills annually, and this is just in NYC!). Another scenario is the clothing that doesn’t sell may end up being shipped to another country and sold or distributed there. That sounds good, but it may also end up hurting the local economy by competing with their local textile industry, or ending up their landfills. I am in no way disparaging thrift stores, they are a necessity for some and becoming increasingly popular with the middle class and the environmentally conscious Gen Zs. Donating to thrift stores is beneficial and convenient, but thinking of the fate of my past clothing definitely makes me more mindful of my future purchases. Enter pandemic and quarantine, a time when the fancy clothes gathered dust, the same sweatpants and leggings were being alternated between washes, and a lot of thought was put into wardrobe purposes and clothing in general. During this time, I have also become more mindful, meditative, and monklike. I feel the need to simplify even further, and let go of the stuff so that I have more room for the really important parts of my life: family, friends, making memories, being creative, exploring, health, career… Reselling: Let’s explore another option to mindlessly bagging up clothes and dropping them off at a thrift store. My daughter has been selling clothes on Depop, a peer-to-peer social shopping app, where she would post her clothes and sell her clothes. I noticed that she was packing up and mailing out packages pretty regularly. Hmm, I sold all my maternity clothes on Ebay back in the day, maybe it’s time to try again. I was directed away from Depop, apparently it is for “younger users,” I need to go to Poshmark, for “older women,” or “moms.” Whatever, here I am on Poshmark. I created an account, took pictures of my clothes, and started listing. It wasn’t long before I got my first offer. Oh, you can negotiate? Cool, counter offer. Sold! Didn’t take long to hook me. I’m following other “Poshers,” they’re following me, I’m in the network, the network of “older women” or “moms” who enjoy clothing as much as I do. I’ve made some offers of my own as a buyer and have scored some great deals. So far, I have been satisfied with my experience on this app. I can write a whole other blog entry on the ins and outs and good and not-so-good of this practice; but overall, I am pleased that my clothes are going to someone who cares. Another app I came across is ThredUP. This is an online thrift and consignment store. You can request a bag for you to pack up clothing pieces, send it back, and they go through it all. They will take accepted pieces, price them, and put them up for sale on their website. They say that they end up only accepting and selling a small percentage of what they receive. You can pay to have your unused items sent back to you, or just donate them. Their website claims that they responsibly recycle or repurpose items that are donated. I ordered a bag and will send them some items. I’m not expecting to make any money on this, I just want the clothes to find a good home. More to follow on this side adventure. Staple Pieces: What pieces do we really need? Have you heard of a Capsule Wardrobe? 37 items per season. During a family Zoom meeting one day, I asked my mom, aunt, cousins, and daughter to tell me about their three most can’t-do-without wardrobe pieces. These female family members all represent different generations, from the Silent Generation to Gen Z. Here are some of the named staple pieces: black pants, black tops, jeans, jewelry, high heels, leggings, outerwear (scarf or sweater), sneakers, perfect white T, black jumpsuit, black dress, leggings, tunics, hoop earrings, and an oversized blazer. This list has helped me build (while removing) staple pieces, holding onto a variety of colors and styles of the following. Based on your lifestyle, everyone’s staple pieces will be different. Mine, jeans and T-shirt heavy; others, leggings and dress heavy. I will share my list at the end. Renting: Now that the thinning shears have been taken to my closet, I feel like I have just the right amount of clothes at the moment. Hangers aren’t overlapping, hanging and folded clothes have room to breathe, and I don’t have to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to wear because there is less to choose from. Basic colors, basic pieces. What about special events? What about those fun pieces that make fashion fashionable? What about the excitement of wearing the latest trend or a splash of color? All, very valid points. Renting clothing seems to be a perfect solution for my inner fashionista. Monthly rental subscription services such as Nuuly or Rent the Runway, offer customers trendy, super stylish, and way-too-expensive items to rent. I have been renting from Nuuly off and on for a couple of years now (more off this past year). The way it works is that you can choose from hundreds of clothing items and put them in your ‘closet.’ Every month you can choose (at least) six items to rent for less than $100. This is how you can try out the latest styles, wear a trendy dress to a party, or just add a fun flashy piece to the staples. If you love the piece, you can buy it for a discounted price. Purchasing: If you really have to buy clothing retail, my last recommendation would be to do your research. One of the ways I research is through an app called Good on You. You search a brand, and it gives you a sustainability rating. They rate based on environmental impact, labor practices, and ethical treatment of animals. If a company rates low, they offer alternatives. Digging deeper in the research, it’s surprising the companies that you think are environmentally conscious based on their vibe or their name, but not so much. On the other hand, big companies who seem more fast fashion and big business are actually taking sustainably responsible steps. Something that has stayed with me from my days of living in Europe, I noticed that people would spend a fair amount of money on a quality crafted clothing item. The items were locally made and once purchased, it was meant to last for years. Fast fashion has since made its way to the old country, hopefully the prudent values prevail. These days, I’m not shopping a whole lot, but when I do, I spend a fair amount of time researching, I make better choices, think about the future of the item, and most importantly, I wait. I give myself a cooling off period, no more impulse consuming. Mindful Fashion, Google it. Staple List: Jeans (skinny, loose, bootcut, cropped, black, white, distressed) Pants (basic work stretchy, joggers, hiking) Jacket (moto, denim, camping, rain, blazer) Sweater (cardigan, pullover) Casual shirts (long sleeve, short sleeve, favorite white T, tanks) Blouses (mostly easy pieces for work, camis, white dress shirt) Dresses (emergency dressy dress, sun dress, maxi) Active wear (this is where leggings go with me) Shoes (running, sneakers, dressy- taupe and black, boots- taupe and black, sandals, and slippers) Bags (tote, clutch, over-the-shoulder, backpack) Jewelry (just favorite pieces that have meaning to me)
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If you have spent any time with me, and you were stressed out about something involving the care of others, you probably would have heard me channel my flight attendant days tell you my go-to analogy of putting your oxygen mask on before you assist others. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of other people. As a mom and a teacher, most of my thoughts and actions revolve around the care of young people. Not only that, I’m a wife, a friend, and a daughter. At some point, being a good one of any one of these means taking care of someone else, which I find easier when I am in a good place, physically and emotionally. Easier said than done, and everyone could use a reminder every now and then. So here it is: step back, pause, breathe, and be gentle with yourself. You’re doing a good job.
I always look forward to Well Women Wednesday, offered by my friends, Melissa and Melia at KÔR Physical Therapy and Wellness. The most recent topic was on Self Compassion. Amy Noelle, a physical therapist, certified mindfulness teacher, and mental performance coach presented. I’m paraphrasing her presentation and offering my own take on it. If you would like more details, I will leave her information in the footnotes. The first exercise of the evening was to think of a situation when something negative was going on with you. What are the things you are saying to yourself? What is your tone? …..Got it? Now, what if something negative was going on with a friend of yours? What would you say to him or her? What would your tone be? Most women at the event agreed that we were a lot kinder to our friend than we were to ourselves. Why is it so hard to treat yourself the way you would treat someone else? Maybe because we grew up learning the Golden Rule and it’s easier to “treat others the way we want to be treated,” but then we really don’t treat ourselves as compassionately as we would treat someone we really cared about. Hmm, that’s something to think about. One way that we can be compassionate with ourselves is to practice mindfulness when we encounter every day struggles. When you are mindful in these situations, you pay attention to what you are feeling and what is causing your feeling (or discomfort). Suffering = pain + resistance. Something easy to explain that causes suffering for me is cooking. Basically, my pain is having to plan meals, looking up recipes, and going to the grocery store. I was not blessed with the whip-something-up gene. The kitchen is my least favorite room in the house, I’m not good at cooking, I’ve never enjoyed it, and it is my pain. The resistance is my attitude towards cooking. Therefore, I suffer. I suffer every night when I need to sustain the life of anyone in my household. Suffering = cooking + bad attitude. So let’s work on the resistance. Since part of my pain is in the planning and shopping of the meals, I started ordering meal kit services (pre-portioned food and recipes delivered to my home). Okay, less resistance. Then I started to turn on some music, or poured a glass of wine (or both), even less resistance. I made it an event. I mindfully lined up the ingredients, and carefully followed the recipe, I knew the end product was something that would be enjoyed and I came to the realization that cooking for others showed them love. Ordering the meal kits was an easy fix for me, but not all pains have a solution that comes delivered to my doorstep every week. Some are more complicated and would require more of a shift in thought and acceptance. The example given to us during the workshop was the pain of being in traffic. Your resistance is your thoughts and worries about being late and maybe feeling frustrated, anxious, or angry about it. So, by changing your thoughts and accepting that you don’t have much control about it at that moment, you are no longer suffering. I try to use this way of thought-shifting most often with my teenage children. Suffering = pain + resistance. My pain (how do I say this nicely) is having teenage children, worrying about the decisions they make when I’m not around, the attitude and moodiness that I am subjected to, and the idea that they are becoming more independent and not needing their “mommy” as much anymore. Even though ‘teenager’ and ‘resistance’ are already synonymous, my resistance is the feeling that I need to control the paths they take, the frustration (and sometimes disappointment) I feel when they don’t make the right decisions, or the sadness I feel when I am rejected. Once I tell myself that I can only control what I can control, which isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, I find acceptance in these situations and the suffering subsides. When I am not suffering, I experience more positive interactions with them. They are the ones who will ultimately live and learn from their decisions, and (guess what?) our relationships remain intact. Probably like most moms of my generation, the most self-abuse comes from the pressure of trying to be a good mom (and a good everything you do). I am learning that beating myself up doesn’t make me a better mom. In those times when I do take my own advice, I will take a moment to savor the time when my son isn’t reluctant to go for a walk with me, or relish the time my daughter and I share a hearty, uncontrollable laugh, and I will tell myself that I’m doing okay. KÔR Physical Therapy and Wellness San Juan Capistrano Contact Info: 949-276-8020 Amy Noelle MPT, CWC Certified Wellness Coach, Mindfulness Teacher, Physical Therapist Contact Info: 949-480-7767 Recommended Meal Kits: Sun Basket Purple Carrot “Mom, you’re so white.”
….said my 16-year-old son the other day. Why is he saying that? Does he know he’s pushing one of my insecurity buttons? What did I do to deserve that? Okay, let me backup a bit. I am half Filipino and half German, by ethnicity. My mom was born in the Philippines and my dad is a third generation German-American. They met in Thailand, married in the UK, and had me in Hawai’i, where I lived for most of my childhood. Growing up in Hawai’i, you know, the “melting pot,” sounds like it would have been good for someone as mixed up as me. Well, I didn’t always feel that way. I felt (and this could be my childhood insecurities talking) that there were groups of races: Hawaiian, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Portuguese (Hawaii’s common European), Filipino, and of course, Haole (a term for foreigner, but mostly referred to all other Caucasian). There were a few mixed-ethnicity children who I did gravitate towards, but I definitely didn’t feel in the majority, whatever that was. Besides my Filipino-Italian best friend, I struggled to find people to identify with. My Seattle-born German-American father spent a fair amount of time in Hawaii before statehood prior to moving back there with my mother. He was also well travelled, having lived in various parts of Asia and Libya with and without my mom. His family mostly remained in Seattle, where I have cousins who I envied because, I believe, they had strong rooted identities. Then there is my mother, who (I feel) doesn’t associate herself with her Filipino roots. When she married my dad, she did her best to Americanize herself. I would, no doubt, associate this with the climate of the times. She spoke perfect English; no Pidgin English for me! Pidgin is a dialect of English widely spoken throughout Hawai’i, and is very prevalent in the schools. (Side note: My junior high English teacher had a pronounced ‘accent.’) With her siblings, my mom would speak some form of Spanish-Tagalog-English. But when asked why I didn’t grow up speaking another language, the answer was that we couldn’t have a secret language from my dad, which, again, I’m sure, was just a move to fit in with the times. Scratching my head, I think about my cousins on that side who speak multiple languages. Keep in mind, this is all from the mind of a kid trying to figure out where she fits in. Fast forward a few years, my parents split, my mom remarries, my dad remarries and moves to Southern California, I follow my dad to Southern California, and my mom moves to Austria. When I move to California, I have another identity crisis. Again, from then an insecure teenager’s point of view, I felt like there were three categories: White, Hispanic, or Asian (mostly Vietnamese where I was living, near Little Saigon). Where did I fit in? I guess wherever I was accepted. I finished off my teenage years in Austria, where my mom had a solid group of friends who were expatriates from various countries. I made some friends there, but at that point I was just “American.” As a young adult, I moved back to Hawai’i for a few years, where I connected with many more mixed-ethnicity peers, before making my way back to California. I would guess that it was not until I was in my 30s when I felt confident and appreciated (and was proud of) my mixed-ethnicity. I don’t take for granted that I have lived in states that are pretty diverse. I think my story would be different if I lived elsewhere. But now, let’s go back to my son’s comment and why I was so, shall we say, offended by it. Is it because I grew up in places that have a diverse population, but not a lot of mixed-ethnicities at that time? Is it because I moved around a lot and never felt like I planted roots? Is it that “white” has a different connotation these days? I confessed to my son the emotional and thoughtful floodgates that his comment opened. His reply, “I only said that because you are on Facebook.” (Insert facepalm here). Let’s have a conversation about the connection of ethnicity, identity, and insecurity. What were some of the factors that affected your identity? Who did you (or do you) identify with? What do you think helped you overcome insecurities? If ethnicity wasn’t an issue for you, what was? |
AuthorAs a photographer and painter, I focus on capturing and creating beauty. Beauty is everywhere. It is confidence, health, intelligence, courage... beauty is aging gracefully. I'm still trying to figure it all out. Let's have a conversation and figure it out together. Archives
March 2021
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