june: what’s bringing me calm

1. Having a chosen daily uniform

It started with wearing scrubs when I had an internship at a hospital in grad school. Wearing scrubs made me realize how grateful I was not to use mental effort on figuring out what to wear each morning. While I no longer wear scrubs every day, I’ve found that at different times in my life I gravitate to different types of chosen uniforms–clothes I’ve selected based on the climate, their comfort, their ease. I’m far from the first person to do this–think of Steve Jobs in his black turtleneck. Right now, I’m loving wearing men’s white crewnecks with a pair of cropped, straight leg blue jeans. Sometimes I’ll change out the t-shirt for a graphic t, but I’m fairly sure I’ve worn the same pair of jeans daily now for the past three weeks or so.

2. Falling in love with west Texas

Although I recently took a trip with my boyfriend to the southwest United States, we didn’t actually visit west Texas for any extended period of time (other than driving through). So how did I end up falling in love with it? Well, we were in the desert, still (New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah), and as we drive through, I started realizing I loved the desert. That we were traveling during May, with relatively cooler weather, might have helped. Before this, I had mainly been out in the desert during the hot summer months, and I don’t really love the desert when it’s hot. But when it’s cool, it’s more bearable, and I can take in more of the beauty. This got me interested in learning more about Marfa, Texas, the Chinati Foundation, and Donald Judd. There’s something about the expansiveness of the desert–the way the sky is so vast, the way shadows can fall on such large stretches of land–that started to make me realize I loved it. (I’ve also found the right moisturizer now to deal with the dry climate, so that has helped, too.)

3. Listening to Ocean Vuong’s podcast interview on Talk Easy

I still need to finish this interview. I’ve worked my way through it slowly. There is so, so much inside of it. I often need to pause it to take it in. Anyway, I could try to summarize it, but it wouldn’t do it justice. Just listen.