Sophia and Me

(Warning: This is sort of a rant. I realize that this blog is about fashion, but I feel like this just needs to be said. I will share some scans of my magazines in the near future.)
Women & Beauty. Today I received some vintage beauty magazines and books that I ordered last week. It goes without saying that they are gorgeous, but what I would like to talk about is Sophia Loren. I bought her book, Women & Beauty, and I can't help thinking about what an inspirational and amazing women she is. What I read next threw me over the brink and finalized, or started, it all. 5 minutes ago. Time doesn't matter. This new beginning is timeless. I read LIFE magazine's Classic Collection, by the way. It inspired me to become an amazing person because, I'm being honest, I am not. Before (or after? I know it was a separate moment) it inspired me, it made me curl up and squirm. Maybe (I am saying "maybe" because it wouldn't be right to explain an emotional thought with "definitely". But now you know what it really was.) I was trying to escape the thought that my life was less than all I had hoped it would be. What an odd and vulnerable position I was in. I was caught wriggling like a fish out of water between a flat wall of instinctual urge to change, and my eyeballs, which I had conditioned to see the world as nothing less than potential garnets adorning Rita Hayworth's decolletage. My wall of instinct must have popped those garnets right out of my eyes and said "Enough with gems. They are blocking your view. Look at your reflection for once. Its time to start seeing yourself as the gem that you are." So there I have it. I need sunlight. I need white dresses. And hairdos. And opportunities. And chances. And photographs, so many photographs. I need something different. This isn't working for me. I'm not going to shape shift into something new for my mountains and quiet suburban house spectators to look at. I am going to get the hell away from here and find a new place that is good enough for me. Paris, Tokyo, London, Milan... I don't know where, but it is going to be in a big city...Somewhere that is a big black dot on a map that I can point to and say "Here it is. Easy to find and definitely here. Do I want to stay or leave?"

Maybe it is just my small town anti-mentality. I had never really thought about it before, but what is there to think about when you are living on a smudge of brown dust on a pale blue road map? Just like the ground and the beige buildings that spur from it, your thoughts start to travel in the same pattern: A short, narrow smudge with no depth or particular direction. You knew there was a way out, but where to? I visualized all possibilities as animated leaps to destinations corresponding with cliched scenarios. Every possibility ended itself, in my mind, as just another piece of paper wedged between a single manila folder titled "Daily Grind". And as paper tends to be, so every dismal option seemed: abundant. On racks at big box stores. In quiet stacks on bottom shelves at office supply stores. It was even available in 24 different shades and textures at art stores. Some was expensive, but most of it was cheap and easy to access. Hell, my desk is piled up with tons of it given to me for free by my school. I have touched none of it. I want to touch rustic and sturdy stone archways and fresh olive oil on a baby's skin. Those things are alive and approachable. They feel sentimental to the touch. Until now, they felt like things that I wasn't allowed to have.

Now none of those fears matter. I am embracing life for what it is: My flesh and soul. And I hate it, hate it, that who or what-ever we rely on for normalcy does not want us to have it. Well, Sir, let me tell you that I'm not going to bother with identifying this person or thing. I'm going to get out there and live my life like nobody's business. And trust me, it will be nobody's business but my own. Sure, there will be photographs and accounts of it, in which I will look oh so darling and enviable, but it will be my life and my memories only. Because in the end, the photographs always tell it like it is: a fleeting moment that you will never be able to fully be a part of and that maybe you should just take it for face value and move on. So I'm moving on and I ain't gonna dwell on it because life has no theme. You can either look at it in a way that makes you happy or you can break the rules and live it how you please.

I'm visualizing my white linen dress and summers in Italy. I'm not really sure how I am going to do this. I'm just going to do what I think is right. The best things always fall into my lap. Mind you, I am a thin girl with a narrow lap. I must be doing something right. Now as a way of thanking you for reading all of this, I will leave you with some pictures.