March Muse: Joan Didion

The weather between winter and spring can be an unpredictable transition — the kind that forces you to be in the moment.

One afternoon it’s cold and sharp. The next, warm enough to leave the windows open. You dress in layers. One day you’re wearing dainty flats, the next day you’re wearing boots. 

This in-between time always sends us back to Joan Didion. We’ve been rereading Slouching Towards Bethlehem — noticing the way she observes light and landscape, how she moves through the world both observational and deeply present.

And you can’t talk about Didion without her iconic packing list — the one she kept taped inside her closet door. A small, precise inventory of what mattered. Essentials only. So we rounded up the shoes we thought she’d wear to guide us through to spring: our Mesa boots, the Amelie Flats and the Ojai. All in black.