400. I was here then I wasn’t here then I went somewhere then I came back then I went away then I came back and now I’m going again, to Paris to read books and be alone
April 27th, 2011 § 25 Comments
I went to the Feria in Arles on Sunday (the ancient Roman city of Arles, which knows only glory and splendor!) and my heart was muttering and stuttering all day. No more about that. I’ve decided to not reject romance when it comes to France, partially because I feel sheepish that nearly every time I’ve written about it on this blog, I’ve always ended up portraying France in a negative light, and even my occasional attempts at writing less bitterly about my life here still conclude with a rotten little coda, when in fact, I’m happy here and I’m happy with the little life I’ve made for myself here.
Sunday, in Arles, on our way to see the Rhône river as the sun was setting, my friend Rémy (hi Rémy!) asked me about my blog and whether or not I consider fashion to be one of my passions and I immediately was like hell to the no, fashion embarrasses me and it gives me nothing but anxiety and self-pity. By now, you’ve probably read Meggy’s sad news about her decision to no longer blog for Fashion for Writers (although I will most definitely implore her to guest post as often as she can!) and leave this site in my pitiful, ever-shaking hands.
Meggy started Fashion for Writers more than three years ago, asked me to join her a year and a half ago, and now, I can only hope that I will do her and FFW proud as I navigate these waters alone. Maybe FFW’s salad days are behind us now that Meggy is no longer blogging here and instead devoting her time to her writing, her other tremendous blog, The Novelist’s Hubris, her job at Modcloth, and well, being one of the most loving and generous people I have ever known (which is some muthafuckin work!) (I promise all of these unconnected sentences/thoughts will be strung together at some point like party lights and when they are, they will shine over this entire post like the flashlight in the pitch dark, and then you can say, Ahh Jenny you do so well to mix up all of your metaphors/platitudes and to take things so far that you strangle all pleasure out of the experience of reading your words!)
There was a moment when Meggy and I were discussing the future of FFW, when we thought maybe it would be a good idea to shut it down altogether. Neither Meggy nor I knew what our relationship to fashion had become and if and how we could continue to contribute to this blog. I know I’ve alluded to this before by way of half formed protests against whatever stake I have left in fashion, but I’ve yet to fully explore my resistance, why I have it, why it keeps coming back, why it gives me such grief, in any sort of composed, half-intelligent way. Anyway, Julia over at L’Allure Garçonniere has already basically put all of my struggles with blogging and in particular, trying to blog about fashion, into a perfectly articulated blog post: ‘thoughts: the feminist blogosphere.’
Like Julia, I too have maybe over 40 drafts of blog posts saved up somewhere that I can’t bring myself to finish because when I post something, I want it to be everything in the world that I’ve ever wanted to express and I want to express it as perfectly or more brilliantly than I’ve ever expressed something, and of course, that never happens, and then I feel defeated and then ages go by, and then it no longer feels relevant to write about the thing I tried to write about weeks, or sometimes months ago, and then I feel defeated when I think about what most fashion blogs look like, and how I can’t relate to them, not just their budget or their concerns, but their entire reason for having a blog. But reading Julia’s blog post about the feminist blogosphere truly does remind me that she’s right to say:
lately i’ve been thinking that the simple act of valuing and viewing critical fashion blogging as “work” in and of itself is a feminist act.
And furthermore:
as long as women will be judged, by their peers, by their families, and even by a court of law, by how they dress, fashion will be a feminist issue. as long as women are told they are what they wear, what brands they wear, how much money they spend on their clothing, etc….fashion will be a feminist issue. as long as fashion advertisers objectify women in order to sell their clothing and products, fashion will be a feminist issue. and basically every time someone asks me “is x a feminist fashion issue?” the answer tends to be yes.
And that’s something I can’t turn my back on just yet. Even though I don’t have the most insightful things to say about fashion and feminism, even if I may not always have the stamina to engage as deeply as I’d like, even though this blog often comes after the people in my life and the novel I’m struggling to finish and the poetry and the letters and the art I’m trying to read and see, and even though I don’t possess the kind of leave-you-breathless-with-my-smarts quality that blogs like A La Garçonniere and Threadbared most certainly have, I think I am going to try and continue to post here, on this humble space that Meggy started and has so generously and trustingly passed to my guardianship.
I admit another big challenge in continuing to write for this blog is that I live abroad. I’m living out of two not very big suitcases. If I want to take a picture, I have to put my camera on some lady or some man’s poubelle in a little Impasse. Not only do I have a tiny selection of things to wear, but I also feel less free than I have ever felt to wear what I want. I guess this is because I’m living in a country that seemingly has more ways of calling a woman a whore than I can count with my hands and feet (thanks Kyle for educating me on the impossibility of insulting a woman in French without being sexually disparaging.) I can’t wear what I feel like unless I don’t mind the harassment, unless I don’t mind feeling scared on occasion.
And to add to all that, it disturbs me when I feel myself craving to buy new things. I don’t want to feel like my interest in fashion is just an interest (an addiction) to consumption, to material things, to wanting to present a perfect exterior to all who see me. I need to believe (and to practice this belief) that a person is not composed of the things they buy, or how beautifully they can ice a cake, or how wonderfully decorated their interior space is, unless we are talking about the interior space of a person rather than their home, and I need to run run run as far away as I can from staged ‘peeks’ into things that are unutterably beautiful because of their inherent complexity and messiness and difficulty, things like: love, partnership, commitment, friendship, the making of a home and a family, all of which when blogged about often leaves the realm of the real, the meaningful, the sublime, and becomes nothing more than uninspiring, unoriginal, curated prettiness.
I think it was for all of these reasons that I told my friend Rémy I’m embarrased by my interest in fashion and blogging.
And jeez, on top of all this disquietude, I am one slow mofo when it comes to writing. It took me a few days to finally write this post. Lately, my mind has been on so many other things, and my body has physically been in so many places. In the past month, I’ve gone to Paris four times, I’ve taken a thirty hour long trip to San Francisco for V’s and A’s beautifully moving wedding weekend, and then a thirty hour long trip back. I’ve applied for maybe sixty jobs in two weeks, trying to find a job here in France for the summer. I finished my contract with the Education Nationale, and no longer get up at 6 in the morning to carpool my tired ass with my colleague who brings me croissants or pain au chocolat, and I no longer hear my students say Madame, Madame, Madame, Madame at the beginning and end of each class hour, and I no longer have to correct my students who charmingly say things like, ‘I make the party and then I fall down drink’ when I ask them what they did this past weekend.
Last week, my mother came and visited me. I met her in Paris and we stayed at a friend’s apartment that reminded her of Shanghai in the 60s. We came back to Avignon and I showed her Le Pont d’Avignon, and the place where the artist Miquel Barceló installed an elephant balanced on her trunk, and we went to Nice and promenaded and ate seafood until we were feeble. My mom went back to the States last Wednesday, and I came back to a half-empty apartment and was so tired and worn out that I didn’t even know how to be sad that I went from this:
to being the only toothbrush putzing around in my underwear in my Avignon apartment.
Tomorrow, I am moving to Paris for two months.
I long to be with the people who know me. But I told myself that I would seek out adventure, and write, and read, and let myself savor the pleasure of being alone, the pleasure of being in love, the pleasure of intimacy without the privilege of physical intimacy, the pleasure of sheer terror that subsides if I listen to the American Anthology of Folk Music at 6 in the morning while watching the sky go from dark blue to a blue that is like the blue in the Picasso painting of a woman with her arms folded.
Oh, it is hard to pack up and say goodbye! I’ve done it many times now, and I feel melancholy and indeterminately excited. There was a day in Avignon when I felt lost, but then Martin and I saw a rainbow and ate chocolate on the terrace and let the day be the day.
Now I have to finish packing and maybe also finish the booze in my apartment that can’t possibly go to waste!
Love,
Jenny
This is a most wonderful/beautiful/eloquent post I’ve in a while (sorry newcomer to your blog here but thankfully old enough to see Meggy active here). Why can’t I write as well as you do? *claws face*
Love, a “fashion blogger”
No face-clawing! Your comment makes me shy, so thank you <3
wonderful well wishes for paree and reading books and eating bread and being alone
I wish Paris was spelled ‘Paree!’ It seems so much freer and so much more fun that way. So far, I nailed the being alone part, but then I ran away and have found myself unexpected surrounded by others.
oh, enjoy your time in paris!
the literature festival “paris en toutes lettres” will be going on for the first few days of may (some pretty cool, free readings),
and i think you’ll very much enjoy merce & the muse coffee shop which is in the haut marais (3e arrondissement). also perhaps pop-in bar (rue amelot, 11e), le truskel (i forget the name of the stret, but it’s near the bourse in the 2e), and le silence de la rue is my favorite record shop (rue faidherbe, 11e).
cheers! charisma
Thank you for all of the suggestions! I will write each and every one of them down and check them out. One of my friends lives right by Pop-in bar so I will stop by for sure.
I’m always always always looking for record shops, and not only because they remind me of high school–skipping out of school to take the train into Manhattan to browse tapes and records at Kim’s Video and think about all the bands I still had to learn about!
xx
“and then you can say, Ahh Jenny you do so well to mix up all of your metaphors/platitudes and to take things so far that you strangle all pleasure out of the experience of reading your words!”
uhm yes.
I also think, aside from what you and Julia have mentioned that the visibility of an intelligent, thoughtful woman who also happens to love style or fashion, which is often regarded as frivolous but said women often don’t really see it as all that frivolous, is very much A Good Thing. I don’t even feel that there need to be incredibly thoughtful ruminations on fashion and feminism and politics attached to it all, but sometimes the visibility alone can be Good. No? I don’t know, I also often think about leaving the blogosphere but then I think of all the wonderful people I’ve come across because of it, and the intelligence and the theories and the feminism and the beauty and everything. And then it’s all Good.
And I hope you won’t be too lonely in Paris, but it’s Paris.
You know what Eline, I agree with you wholeheartedly. You’re right to say that the visibility alone is a Good Thing, capital G capital T, capital everything else.
<3 J
on one point, you are mistaken. you do have those leave-the-reader-breathless-whip-smarts–they’re all over this post, and your paragraph on ‘curated prettiness’ articulates perfectly why i often leave my google reader feeling so deflated. i’m grateful you’ve decided to continue writing here.
Let’s not let the internet deflate us, Elizabeth! We march onward with hopes of our own and every intention and plan to execute them.
<3 JZ
Every time I read your posts, I think “she’s so brave, I admire her”.
That is a really kind thing to say. I don’t even know how to respond. Thank you.
i have followed you guys for a while without commenting, but i just wanted to say thanks for continuing FFW. quite simply, FFW is my ideal (fashion) blog, and i love reading your writings.
Best luck in Paris~ i hope you have yourself a magnificent adventure!
Thank you Janet! I’m pretty shy and sometimes maybe just plain lazy when it comes to leave comments… and sometimes I’m amazed that people will actually take the time to leave nice comments for FFW. Thanks a bunch for your sweet, encouraging comment!
Practically every sentence of this post is amazing. Hurray for the continued life of FFW!
Dude, I am so air-guitaring a solo for you right now.
Jenny,
Thanks so much for posting this. I, too, struggle with the implications of blogging and have over and over again (as recently as yesterday)considered scrapping the entire activity all together. Yet, reading that this “feminist blogosphere” exists and that I could be a part of it gives me renewed energy. So thank you!
Also: did you see the coverage of all the cheering college students post-bin Laden’s death? (Well, I’m sure you did.) When I saw it, I thought (sadly to myself), “What’s Jenny going to say about this?” A sad day for the “American” spirit.
Je t’embrasse,
A
Ah! Due to my recent deprivation of internet, I actually have not seen that, but I’m going to do my spirit no favors and check that out now. It sounds pretty revolting though. I so consider you a part of the feminist blogosphere, and I know with all my heart that you’re going to do great things at your grad program! I’m jealous that you’re getting to hit the books again. I’d love to sit down right now with some cultural/feminist/queer studies books right now and be back in the lecture hall.
xx
And, don’t worry, you aren’t the only blogger out there embarrassed by their interest in fashion and blogging.
jenny, i love your honesty and lyrical writing. so glad i stumbled across FFW, and i hope you keep posting here.
i tried posting this as a comment, but the website
one question, however. why don’t you think one can be comfortably feminist and still love fashion? i am aware of the many fraught (and deeply anti-feminist) issues deeply embedded in the innards of The Fashion Industry, but then again, in my experience The Fashion Industry is but one of many, many layers of worlds in an industry that includes many intelligent, supremely talented and (even feminist) men and women. there are many voices that offer alternative ideas of what it means to love fashion.
have you read this essay in W? i highly recommend it.
http://www.wmagazine.com/fashion/2011/04/carol_edgarian_personal_style?currentPage=1
in response to some of the comments here, at least for me, i’m not at all embarrassed about having a fashion blog. i love to blog about personal style and the joys of expressing oneself (this is one of many ways of doing so, of course) through a genuine love of clothes and material histories and everyday beauty. i think it’s entirely possible to blog about fashion and incorporate it meaningfully into the rest of one’s culturally and intellectually rich life.
so what do you think? i’d love to hear your thoughts. or email me!
Ah Sophie! I have a long email in the works to send to you! I promise it will arrive in your inbox soon. Thanks for all the links and just quickly, I 100% agree with you that we can be feminists and be proud about our interest in fashion and be proud of the way in which we are interested in fashion. I’m not proud of the way that I consume clothes, which I don’t think of as fashion. I don’t like the feeling of needing to buy more things–I don’t like what it does to me, what it does to other people, and what it does to the planet… but that said, I am absolutely absolutely in agreement with you!
Thanks for the W essay. It’s on my list of things to read immediately when I get regular internet access!
<3<3
J
oops – meant to excise that *third line after trying to wrangle this long comment on the sluggish wordpress connection!
It’s so funny that I read this today, because in many ways it’s exactly how I feel about blogging – not sure what it’s there for, what its purpose is… It’s tough. You put it all so well though, as ever, and I’m pleased it’s a common worry!
I must say though, FFW is so well put together and strikes such a good tone, that it is a real favourite of mine.
It is a common worry! Gosh, if I ever expressed all the worries that pass through me in any given moment, I think I might frighten you and anyone else who reads this blog…
Thank you so much for your kind words. I am happy that something in my life seems put together <3
JZ
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