Dressed Up For Dinner

I walked toward the jazz music playing down the hall, my velvet Eileen Fisher low pumps slowly clicking, clacking on the hardwood floor. I wasn’t going anywhere but my own kitchen, where my husband had just started dicing shallots for risotto. He, in his soft wool pants, leather shoes that still have their new shine, and a shirt and tie, smelling alluringly of his musky yet piney pomade; me, in a green and white vintage shift dress, its pattern reminiscent of the curtains that Maria transforms into clothing in The Sound of Music, black tights and low heels, freshly applied Burt’s Bees Lip Shimmer in plum, the only lip color I’ve worn for years.

This is the best I’ve felt all day, I said, after we clinked glasses of cold white wine. Finally, I felt refreshed and energized, happy, even. I’d spent the day trying to chase down those feelings, to release some of the anxiety and depression that have been underlaying my existence lately as uncertainty about government work and academia fills my head, as I reckon with burn out, as I second-guess professional choices I’ve made. Ticking items off of my to-do list (cleaning the apartment, doing our taxes) didn’t soothe me, nor did going for a walk around the neighborhood, soaking in the sunshine and warming late-winter temperatures for 45 minutes; endorphins from exercising didn’t seem to penetrate my low mood, either. It was in clothes that don’t come off of hangers very often, letting cold, dry wine slide over my tongue, I found myself luxuriating in the moment; I focused on gradually adding broth to rice, continually stirring it, alternately pushing Brussels sprouts around the skillet on the adjacent burner. My husband and I chatted, cleared the air about certain stressors, queued some of our favorite songs, discussed our dreams and desires. I let my worries about the uncertainties of our future ebb for an evening. I felt fully present in the evening’s activities. Though they weren’t too different from any other night, they were transformed by what we chose to wear.

For our Sunday dinner, we'd decided to cook a nice meal to accompany watching the latest White Lotus episode. Though we’d committed to a night in, there was no need to commit to sweatpants. In their conversation on anarcho-tradwives, Raechel Anne Jolie, Hazel Acacia, and Margaret Killjoy discuss finding joy through wearing clothing that, simply put, makes them feel nice, to do housework. Clothing is inherently performative, but it need not only be performative for someone else; it’s a performance that I think should be primarily for the self. Cooking, too, is prey to this logic: When we are just cooking for ourselves, in the privacy of the home, we are told that we can be liberated from the performance of cooking for others, we can reject the so-called pressure to create a beautiful meal. But why should that beauty be reserved solely as a showpiece for an external audience? Why should we reign in that beauty in our solitude? Marosia Castaldi, in The Hunger of Women, reminds us of the joy and pleasure found through cooking at home, and even more so, of making a grand occasion out of doing so, and of how powerful and poignant it can be to find ourselves, or come back to ourselves, in the process. Rosa transforms and blossoms in her home-turned-trattoria when she brings a sense of magic, of romance, of dazzling energy to everyday practices.

My closet isn’t too densely packed. I tend to purchase clothing that I’ll wear again and again, including my wedding dress. I am a pragmatic shopper, but I am also sentimental and romantic, and these traits intersect through the idea of imbuing my clothing with layers of memories. Last night, I wore a dress that I wore to a wedding in 2022, when I danced to New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle” in a vintage clothing store cleared out for the reception and smoked too many cigarettes for the very last time; it’s the dress that I wore when we hosted a New Years Eve party last year, when hosting made my heart swell with appreciation for friendship and gathering; and now, it’s what lifted my mood when seemingly nothing else could.

The dress that I wore last night is homemade, its simple seams and lack of a label revealing it as such. I wonder about who made it: Was it for herself, a friend, a sister, or daughter? I wonder about the experiences and memories it carries: Was it originally made for an occasion, or for everyday wear? How many days has it improved? How many moods has it lifted?