All About the Lace

Twice a year, in January and July, all the stores in Paris have big sales (soldes in French). I arrived in Paris in January 2007 in the middle of them. But preoccupied with finding a place to live and getting my life in order, shopping was forced to take a back seat. Luckily, I was still in Paris come July. Walking home one warm summer day I decided on a whim to go into this lingerie store I'd long had my eye on. One hour later, I'd tried on half a dozen night gowns and was leaving the store with a black nightie with lace trim. The next July, back in Paris doing research for my masters, I happily indulged in more sales and more lingerie - complete with lace trim.

It seems my favourite material just might be lace. It is the perfect compliment to clothing of any kind, especially lingerie. Somehow wearing a nightgown or camisole that has lace in it makes me love it all the more. It's very pretty and feels nice as a fabric too. Lace also works well on its own. I already have a lace shirt, and black lace leggings, and my dream is to one day have a lace dress.

But lace and lingerie aside, sleepwear (of all kinds) are my favorite type of clothing. Maybe it's because I really like staying home, in bed and in my pajamas, reading or on my computer. So I want to have a good wardrobe for those activities. I also like how sleepwear is supposed to be both comfortable, but also any number of other adjectives like pretty/cute/sexy/warm. A person can pick and choose depending on their mood. Even though I am asleep the majority of the time I wear any sleepwear, it's still nice to go to sleep and to wake up wearing something I like and that makes me happy.

I sometimes think about and miss Paris, and its (among other things) fabulous lingerie stores. But most fortunately, Toronto has good ones too, one of which (Beestung, see picture below) happens to be about a 7 minute walk from my house. After seeing and falling in love with a nightgown in the window, after walking by it several times over a two week period, I finally went in there on a chilly Sunday afternoon in March and bought it, despite the lack of soldes. I'll always love Paris for (among other things) introducing me to excellent lingerie, but it's nice to know I can still get my fix on this side of the Atlantic.

Across the Border, just a minute away

A few weeks ago C. and I went to Niagara Falls. It struck me, as we stared out across the falls and over to the American side, that the US-Canada border is fairly nondescript. Though I've never been to Niagara Falls, New York I imagine it is just an extension of Niagara Falls, Ontario; the same language, fast food joints, flashing signs, tacky motels and extra large casinos - all with the falls as a dramatic backdrop.

Two years ago, S. and I drove through El Paso, Texas en route to Los Angeles. My eyes were glued to the views of Ciudad Juarez, hilly and cramped, across the Rio Grande. There was no mistaking that Ciudad Juarez belonged to a different country. It was striking how different it was, and how the Rio Grande - not very wide in diameter - could have such distinct cities on each side of its banks. We could see lots of people, running or milling around in front of houses that had tin roofs, and looked more like shacks. El Paso looked more American - typical apartment buildings, familiar gas stations, nothing out of the ordinary.

I had a different border experience, however, out in the middle of nowhere. Last June, J. and I went to Big Bend National Park in West Texas, which is located on the border with the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Coahuila. Under bright blue skies and air thick with heat and adventure, we ventured to the banks of the Rio Grande. Big Bend is never that crowded, and was even less so that day, and so J. and I had the shores of the river, and by extension the whole border, to ourselves. It felt a bit like the wild west, like we were on the frontier and were about to make some great discovery, even though the landscape looked nearly identical on the other side. I had to keep reminding myself "That's Mexico!" In a sense it was similar to the two Niagara Falls in that there were no noticeable differences. I waded into the water (warm, brown, silty, and surprisingly soft on my feet) and though I didn't go far, I can't say I wasn't tempted by the idea of wading and/or swimming to the other side. It would have been so easy to cross that mysterious, invisible line (so mysterious, and invisible who even knows exactly where it is...) and seek my fortune on Mexican soil....