Size is just another number.

It's funny, my husband is a 32x31 pant size and a 17x32/33 in dress shirts. ALWAYS. It doesn't matter who the designer is or what season it may be, I can buy pants and shirts in those sizes and outside of color or pattern preferences I know it's going to work. Not so for women.

I'm not sure what has happened in the last decade when it comes to women's sizes. When did it become so...arbitrary?

According to various sources, Marilyn Monroe at her sveltest was about 5'5 1/2" and weighed 118lbs. Her measurements were approximately 35-22-35. She was a 36D. Did you know that it is said she wore a size 12 in a dress and a size 8 in pants, a far cry from the size 0, 2 and 4's that today's celebrities pride themselves in wearing.

But really, does it matter what the number is? Isn't the point that we want to look good in what we wear regardless of size?

A friend of mine use to work in the shoe department at Nordstrom and he said he would order extra boxes of size 7 because women would come in swearing that they were that size when they were most obviously not. His solution? "Yes, Ma'am, the box here says 7, try this on and see if it works." Anything for a sale, right?

What is it about the numbers we use to define ourselves that can make us so happy or conversely, sad, when they are not in line with what we believe they should be? Too many times we get hung up on a number - whether it's a salary ideal, a weight ideal or a clothing size. But it's just a number and when it comes to clothing (and really, LIFE in general) the number doesn't matter.

As my dear friend, Jennifer commented brilliantly on my New Year's Post:

...remember that the best clothing lies. It lies for you - makes your bum smaller (Hi Clinton!) or your legs longer, or balances your giant shoulders by nipping in at the waist. The trick is to find the right lie, the one that works best for you.

I love the empire waist tops but I look at least thirty pounds heavier in them. That's also a lie, just not a lie I want to tell! And skirts? Why show off my thick ankles? I want jeans that lie for me and tell a different story.

Jennifer is an art director for a magazine who has styled models as well as magazine pages. And she's absolutely right. Looking good is about discovering what works best for YOUR body type. I'm busty at 5'4" and a 36D. My waist, however is not a size 22 like Marilyn Monroe's and so I wear good bras (another post in the future) and clothes that accentuate the smallest part of my upper body so that I show the world that I actually do have a waist under "the girls". That may sound like a "duh" moment, but it took me years to figure this out, but once I did, I routinely heard people asking me if I had lost weight.

So today I look for what fits me, regardless of the size. I have everything from XS to XL shirts in my closet, but really, who cares what the tag says if I look and feel good about myself? A skirt in a recent Savvy Outfit of the Day is a size 10. I generally wear 4's, but look what I would have missed if I didn't try it on just because of the number on the tag.

The place we need to get is one where we are happy with where we are NOW not where we MIGHT be someday, and I think it's a life-long lesson. From as far back as I can remember, I have tried, not always successfully, to find peace and a measure of joy in the moment instead of wishing I was somewhere or someone else. It's an ideal to which to aspire because the reality is that I only have the power to affect right now. Sure I can (and should) make plans for the future, but that can all change in a moment's notice.

Corny as it may be, I've heard it said, "Yesterday is history. Tomorrow a mystery. Today is a gift. That's why it's called 'present."

So go out there ye Savvy Women and seize the present!

The Man in Black - Finding Contentment

My plane trip to live in Nashville back in January 1991 was spent in deep conversation with the man sitting next to me. I was 21, and he said he was 26 but the little broken blood vessels on his face and the aimless, sad air about him spoke of someone who had walked through some difficulties already in his young life. We talked about music a little. He was listening to Bob Marley on a cassette tape. Whew, there's a throw-back, right?

Anyway, we got pretty deep spiritually. I grew up experimenting with New Age and some transcendental meditation (sans drugs), nothing too deep and more spiritual than religious. Filled with an inexplicable longing, I spent a good part of my teenage years studying some of the world's major religions trying to figure out how life worked; Shintoism, Buddhism, Daoism, Hinduism, and more. In my sophomore year of college while studying abroad in Germany, I decided it was time to study the Bible. After all, Christianity is one of the world's major religions, right? We talked about all those thing, about life, God, brokeness, alcoholism and more on the five hour flight to Music City, USA.

As the plane landed, my new friend, John, told me he wanted to introduce me to his parents. He added in an odd voice, "Just don't look at their faces."

I thought it a strange request, but I agreed and we walked into the concourse together chatting till we got to the baggage claim where we walked up to a couple. I don't remember much other than the man, tall and lanky, was dressed all in black and she, standing close by his side, was dressed in a denim skirt and shirt with long black hair. We talked for just a moment or two. I told them that they had a good son and that I really enjoyed my conversation with him. They seemed guarded, but polite, as if they weren't sure what to make of what I had said.

I walked back to the group of other record label employees that had also been on the plane and waited for my baggage. They all stared at me. Finally, one of them asked, "Don't you know who that was?" Naive southern California girl that I was, I shook my head.

"That was the man in black, Johnny Cash."

I laugh to think that I still didn't know who he was, but John and I had exchanged phone numbers on the plane and over the next year kept in touch some. He helped me get my car to the shop when it died and cruised sans power down Old Hickory Boulevard late one night. We spent some time talking on the phone, but our lives drifted apart. I never talked to his parents again, but I know that John Carter Cash found peace in his life. Nashville is still a small town in some ways. We have some mutual acquaintances but have never seemed to bump into each other again. I suspect we will someday, that's just how Nashville is.

Over the years I have since come to appreciate Johnny Cash and his story. It made me understand John Carter Cash and the sadness I encountered that day on the plane. I mourned with the rest of the Music City (and the world) when June Carter Cash died and when Johnny Cash, her soulmate, died just four months later.

I wasn't a fan of country music when I first got here, but the 90's were the hey-day of country music and I got swept up into it. It wasn't "hick-ish" like I thought. It was simple, sweet, and sometimes, incredibly powerful. I was sitting in a small barn with a couple dozen other people when Tim McGraw sang "It's Your Love" to Faith Hill at a local benefit for one of the first times with tears in his eyes. She was glowing and pregnant at the time.

Country music has always had an element of being thankful and a sense of contentment that seems to be lacking in many of the other forms of music today which seem to thrive on angst or lust - not that there is anything wrong with those things, they exist in this crazy world we live in today. But to quote Epicurus a Greek philosopher who lived from 341-270 BC, "Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for."

When I was a teenager I hoped to find peace and purpose in this life while trying to graduate from high school. When I was in my early twenties I hoped to graduate college and go on to work in the music industry. When I was in my mid-twenties I hoped I would find a smart, handsome, humble man with whom to share my life and who would love me as I am. In my thirties I hoped we would have healthy, happy children together. And somewhere in the midst of all that I hoped we could afford a house and cars that ran. All those things I had hoped for, the big things in life, I have today.

Sure there are things I still desire. I hope to take my kids to Hawaii to visit their 90+ year old Great-Grandmother and to visit where I went to Kindergarten. I hope to take them to Germany to see where I was born and to travel beyond the borders of the United States. I hope to learn another language. I hope to one day start a business with my husband. I hope to lose these last five pounds...

But even if I never do those things, I want to be thankful for what I do have - which is a roof over my head, food on the table (enough that I'm carrying an extra five pounds), two healthy and happy children, a husband who loves me and a Mom and Dad and Sister whom I love dearly and who love me back. I am a blessed woman, and heaven forbid I loose sight of that in my desire for world travel, a smaller waist size, a clean house, and a little more money after the bills are paid.

What do you have today that you once only hoped for?

Ancient Chinese Secret...

No, it's not a new and improve laundry stain remover, but this wonderful little saying I found on my Good Earth, Earl Grey teabag this morning.

Flowers leave some of their fragrance in the hand
that bestows them.