A Constant State of Annoyed Wonder

A few years ago I wrote about my style. I can’t remember where exactly I wrote about it, otherwise I’d post the link. Basically it boils down to this: I’m 41 years old, and I live in Maine. That means I’m a Gen-Xer who lives in a cold, rural habitat. I dress like the love child of Kurt Cobain and Betty Draper. I will legit wear a flannel shirt over a black dress and think it looks good. I wear LL Bean Boots or Converse Allstars as dress shoes – unironincally. I have no concept at all of how to dress for events. Good thing is, no one else up here does either. But this post isn’t about that. This post is about the crazy spring we’ve had up here.

The weather in Maine this spring has been weirder than usual. It’s freakin’ cold. And I mean, it’s May 31 and my heat was on this morning. This is bad for a number of reasons. First, obviously, it’s cold and nothing is growing and the plants are all way behind. Second, and perhaps less obvious if you don’t live in a cold climate, is that we are still paying for heat. The summer is when we save up all our money to pay for the heat for the rest of the year. As of right now, we have not had that break. And look, we do not keep our house warm the thermostat is on 63. It’s a monster of an old house with no insulation. I KNOW?! WHAT WERE WE THINKING? It’s a very, very beautiful house in an excellent location. That’s what we were thinking. Anyhow, it’s cold, that’s what I’m trying to say. Oh, and it’s also wet. And so, I have even less of an idea what to wear than usual.

The author in an old cable-knit sweater.
I’ve been wearing this old sweater for far too long.

For example, last weekend I put on a cute dress. My legs were so white that my husband thought I was wearing some weird tights. I was not wearing tights, my poor legs hadn’t seen the light of day for 9 months. But, joy! It was warm enough to wear a dress with no leggings…at that moment. 10 minutes later, I put on some leggings, black. Not white. 10 minutes later I put on a sweatshirt. 10 minutes later the sun came back out and it warmed up enough so that I took off the sweatshirt. 10 minutes later the leggings. About an hour later, it had cooled off enough so I put it all back on again.

I’ve been wearing the same wool cable-knit sweater for weeks. It has just enough stretch and space between the stitches so that even though it’s wool it’s not super hot. Well, except for today, when the sun came out for a few minutes while I was at the farmers’ market and I almost keeled over. Don’t worry though, the sun went back behind the clouds and now I’m in my office freezing again.

The thing about living in Maine, is that I so often find myself saying, “I’ve never seen anything like this.” The weather, the brown tail moths, the tourists. It’s like living in a constant state of annoyed wonder, which suits me just fine.

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