#Cottagecore

Recently, I was hanging out with my cousin and she told me she loved cottagecore. I asked her what cottagecore was, and she told me it was doing things like canning peaches or squeezing lemons to make the air in the kitchen smell good. Looking it up, Wikipedia told me it's an aesthetic that romanticizes rural life and small communities. It's got pioneer feels. It's where the word calico, not in relation to cat, but a to a dress, feels most at home. It's about sustainability. It's about simplicity.

It's what my husband and I do for fun, and we had no idea our vibe fit so neatly into a hashtag.

The further I read down the Wikipedia page, the more I felt weirdly seen. It talked about nostalgia for a simpler times, a connection with the outdoors, a way to disconnect from the trauma of one's current situation. Even the "critiques" tab, waxing on cottagecore's problematic associations with heteronormativity, traditional gender roles and romanticizing poverty, were concepts on which I had spent lots of brain calories. Nothing I read was groundbreaking to my world view, it was just startling to see all of these ideas smashed into a single Wikipedia page.

As my husband often says after I send him a relationship meme on Instagram, Are we really this Basic?

I guess we are. But I'm going to be honest. I love my cottagecore hobbies. Making preserved lemons is one of my favorite things to do. Eating said preserved lemons is one of my favorite things to eat.

But while I'm willing to attempt a lot of things, I'm not always good at what I attempt. But I put my whole self into my failures. As someone most recently told me, I don't half ass it. I whole ass it. Which is how the peacock shirt came to be.

It was summer in the desert. It was year two of COVID. Weekends presented one of two options: One could drive hours to the nearest mountains, or one could stay in their air conditioned house. I lived on the cooler side of the valley, where it only reached about 115 degrees during the day. Nothing beyond a few restaurants and stores were open thanks to the plague. You were inside your house or you were out of town. That was it.

So, foregoing leaving town, I decided I was going to learn to sew a clothing item. I went to Walmart (side note, desert Walmarts are never boring), and I found several clothing patterns. One of which was for a men's shirt.

Since I had a husband, and the pattern seemed less complicated than a woman's garment, I decided, my husband was getting a shirt.

I picked several different patterned fabrics, none of which technically matched, but I technically didn't care. I also bought the cheap fabrics because in high school I had been in woodworking class where I learned that despite the adage Measure twice, cut once, I was prone to YOLOing it. I expected to mess this up.

I went home and began my journey. It took hours. It should not have taken hours. But I was, and continue to be, very bad at sewing. The collar of the shirt was particularly unwieldy. After a few attempts I deemed it good enough. And as twilight set upon the desert, I put the final stitch into the peacock shirt.

When my husband came home, I was really excited. I love giving presents. He hates getting presents. He immediately knew I was going to give him something, which meant he would be required to react in the ineffable right way. The stress was on. Would he produce the correct facial expression when I gave it to him? I could see the dread welling up inside of him.

"I MADE YOU A SHIRT," I said, handing it to him.

His face did not assemble itself into the overjoyed gratitude it should have.

"I have a shirt."

"Not this shirt."

He looked at it, taking in the different patch work fabrics and the scratchy material.

"Thanks..."

"TRY IT ON."

He knew there was no way to get out of this. And, with a deep breath, he pulled off the shirt he was wearing.

Once ensconced in the peacock shirt, he said, "The collar is kind of choking me."

"Just ignore that. You should wear this when we go out to dinner."

The next week we were meeting friends and going to a fancy restaurant for dinner.

"I don't..."

"...Think you should finish that thought," I said.

A week later, we were ready to go to dinner. I had been adamant he wear the peacock shirt. He came out of the bedroom looking sullen, but the shirt looked sharp, even with the totally messed up collar. At least I thought it looked sharp. He acted like a cat stuffed into a dog sweater. But, the train had left the station. He had to wear it.

The dinner was fun. At the end of it, while we were walking to the car, I told him he looked really nice in his shirt, and I was glad he liked it.

"I do not like this shirt. You bought material with no stretch and my nipples have been cheese gratered off. And, it's still choking me."

"You don't like it?" I was crushed.

"No. I hate it. And I'm never wearing it again."

And he didn't. In fact, I think he threw it out. Am I sad about this? Yes. But do I have the pictures of him in the peacock shirt? I do.

Some days when I'm feeling sad I look at them. And I remember, I'm real bad at sewing, but that's okay. My husband wore that shirt and whole assed that dinner. Never once did he complain about his bleeding nipples until we were done.

That's the pioneer spirit I fell in love with.

#cottagecore