Bedouin Dress

"In the street one day I saw you among the crowd in a geometric pattern dress, gleaming white just as I recall. Old as I get I will never forget it at all." - Fleet Foxes

I've admired the Ikat Frequencies Shirtdress online and on other bloggers for awhile now. I've been trying to be good about buying new things, so it's just been hanging out in my wish list. Last week, I decided I was going to treat myself and finally purchase it. However, before I pulled the trigger I decided to browse Anthro's website one more time. I found the little number I'm wearing in today's post hiding out in the lounge section. It just seemed more "me" than the Ikat Frequencies, and it cost a little less too. I wore it last week for "casual Friday" at work, and I'm not going to lie, it felt really good to have something new on again.

I wish I didn't feel this way. I wish putting on a new dress didn't make me feel so damn happy and confident in myself. I want to be satisfied with what I already have and not keep seeking the high I get from something new. It's hard, though. The monotony and dullness of daily life gets me down, and it seems like the acquiring of new items is one of the few things that makes me feel alive again. I hate that I'm this way, because I know I'm setting myself up for a miserable existence. Material things don't last. They lose their appeal as soon as you acquire them and then you have to go looking for the next thing. It's a vicious cycle that never brings true peace and happiness.

I was looking through some old photos of my kids on my computer yesterday, and I stumbled across a video. There was my sweet little son, my oldest who will be 11 in November, dancing up a storm in his pajamas. He was 3 years old, just a toddler. Next to him, watching his every move, was my other son, a tiny little baby crawling around on the floor. As I watched it, I felt such love and longing, longing to go back to that time when my babies were so sweet and innocent and life seemed so much easier. When I thought about it, though, life wasn't easier then. It just seems so in retrospect. In fact, everything seems better in retrospect. We tend to forget about the bad and remember the good when it comes to our past. Why can't we do this in the present? I think that's the key to living a happy and fulfilling life - to live in the moment, to not dwell in the past or look to future circumstances to make us happy, to be content with the here and now, and to find beauty in the everyday.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

- W.B. Yeats

Fleet Foxes - Bedouin Dress