When I was in Grade 7, I recieved my first and only “real” detention. Oh sure, I’d received plenty of lunchtime detentions for neglecting my math homework, but the real detentions – the Black Book Detentions – were handed out only when one did something really bad. The very name “Black Book” brought to mind a musty, multi-volume book, covered in cob webs and kept in a secret candlelit chamber. What egregious crime landed my name among the scrawls of my fellow delinquents? I cheated on my Memory Work.
Every week, students were tasked with committing a particular verse of the Bible to memory. I usually fared very well in these, but this week, I was hung up on the very first verse of the passage (I had already written out the rest!). In a rash and foolish move, I tried (unsuccessfully) to sneak a peak at the completed selection inside my desk. My teacher caught me. I was mortified, and choked back tears for the duration of the afternoon. I still remember the big ol’ zero he wrote at the top of the page – it had a sad face inside it.
My memory failed to work that day, and I so failed my memory work. However, I won’t go ahead and say I’ve got a bad memory. I’ve actually got a very good one, in certain contexts. But that’s the frustrating part: I couldn’t recall that verse when I needed to, I can never remember where I leave my keys, what bills to pay, and when the garbage has to go out, but when it comes to recalling the lyrics of 90s pop songs, the filmography of long-gone child stars, and the jingles of local furniture stores, I’ve got an encyclopedia up there. That’s likely why my blog so often ends up at back at nostalgia and reminiscing. These useless facts gotsa go somewhere!
And that, coincidentally, is where we come back to what I’ve got on today.
This skirt is a recently acquired thrift from my favourite Salvation Army. It’s pleated, it’s minty, and it’s pretty darn trendy considering it’s another 70’s find. The colour is insanely popular these days. I mean sheesh, It’s all over my blog! As soon as I put on this skirt, I went uber matchy-matchy and painted my fingers and toes in that colour, too. But while my memory may not have retained all of Psalm 29, it did dig up something random that puts this outfit – and that very trendy colour – in perspective. Before my seafoam manicure was dry, I remembered a Mastercard commercial from nearly 14 years ago. It was a foggy memory – about seafoam and bridesmaids. I’ll I needed to Google was “seafoam mastercard” and there it was.
If you don’t feel like watching the clip, the premise is simple: It paints a little vignette of a pretty, sad little bridesmaid, forced to wear a most-ghastly shade of seafoam from head to toe, simply to appease a stereotypical bride. But then the two women share a lovely, moving embrace while the voiceover says “a friend wearing seafoam for: priceless”.
It’s quite funny, isn’t it? Something that was deemed a particular kind of torture (Seafoam nails! Horror!) is the same thing I willingly delight it not 15 years later. And look at her dress – it’s lacy, asymmetrical, and all kinds of pretty by today’s standards. I actually kind of love it. My memory might fail me on occasion, but I do appreciate when it provides little gems like this, simply because it keeps me humble. It reminds me that it’s all been done before: everything that’s considered old and dated one year might be considered new and trendy the next. It’s a reminder of the fickleness of fashion. I’m obviously still privy to being swayed by colour trends and fads, but that shouldn’t be the defining factor in how I dress my blog, or by body. If I like the seafoam, I should be rock it whether it’s on trend or not. Remind me of that in a few years.
A closing word of advice: Trends aside, you can wear just about anything so long as it’s paired with a plain white tee, because that’s one thing that will never be out of style. That’s pretty easy to remember, eh?