This weekend I am going to turn 39, and I'm starting to suspect I might not outgrow my love of shopping. I had fond visions of becoming the sort of high-minded adult who is above caring about mere things, too busy doing important work to waste hours searching for faceted opals and roll-arm sofas and church chairs that hold books, but no. My love for things is unabated. Tassel earrings, wood-heeled shoes and painterly scarves are on my short list right now.
Settling back into the cozy armchair of reminiscent birthday-inspired pontification, thoughtfully chewing the stem of a licorice pipe (recommended), I can say that with each year, life becomes more precious and mysterious and interesting and frustrating and perplexing and sad and joyful. I don't know what's at the bottom of it. Maybe turtles.
A famous astronomer, after a lecture, was told by an elderly lady, who was perhaps under the influence of Hinduism, that his cosmology was all wrong. The world, she said, rests on the back of a giant tortoise. When the astronomer asked what the tortoise stands on, she replied: “You’re very clever, young man, very clever. But it’s turtles all the way down.”*
sweater / jeans / scarf / earrings / watch / shoes
