Friday Faves / vol. 8

Helloooo!

Holy hell, it’s June already. Seriously, how. Today, Mr Rae is flying back from Germany where he’s been working for the past week. On Saturday I drove the kids across the state to spend Memorial Day weekend with their grandparents. There was lots of swimming and a visit to Lake Michigan, and also Clementine chipped her tooth (again) jumping into the pool and Hugo woke up with a weird rash two days ago…it’s since gone away, but this is life. The combination of solo parenting along with my rage and sadness over the state of the world and country of late has been making things feel…I really don’t know what the right word here is. I guess hard.

Grace Rother wrote in her newsletter last week: “May in the midwest is luscious and abundant. The trees have all of their leaves, the grass is thick and blooming, and every spring flower that hasn’t burst yet is on the verge. We’ve needed this abundance to cushion a sorrow-filled month of hard news and fresh grief.”

Reading Grace’s words struck a chord with me. There’s something about the juxtaposition of all of these horrible tragedies against the backdrop of the beauty of spring. Joy and sorrow, side by side. It often feels trite to write about my “faves” with everything else going on, but sharing the small joys also feels important. These things tether me to reality and put a smile on my face while I’m fixing snacks and wiping sticky hands, and help me to remember that I’m alive, I’m still here. Life is good, in so many ways. And it sucks shit sometimes. Both/and.

Some things to share with you this week:

reading: I devoured Firekeeper’s Daughter this weekend. It’s soo good: the perfect combination of exciting, suspenseful, and quick moving. CW: drug use, suicide, sexual assault, it seems like more of an “adult” read to me than the “teen” label my library put on it would indicate, so if you’re feeling tender RN this book may not be for you. The story stars a young female Ojibwe protagonist and takes place on the reservation in and around Sault St Marie and Sugar Island in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The author, Angeline Boulley, is an enrolled member of the Sault St Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians.

contacting: my representatives to demand gun reform. I want a country where we can go grocery shopping, send our kids to school, and go to concerts without fear of being gunned down. An assault weapons ban, raising the minimum age of gun ownership, and universal background checks. I also want politicians to stop saying stupid shit like “guns aren’t the problem” but that’s probably too much to ask. I found this Cup of Jo post helpful; lots of info and how to contact representatives and what to ask for.

sewing: I refashioned a swim coverup I wasn’t wearing (Beach Goddess Maxi here) by chopping off the bottom of the skirt and turning it into sleeves which I attached to the top. I love how it turned out, and I’ve already worn it three times since last week.

hand-sewing: Hand-sewing an entire garment from start to finish isn’t a foreign concept to me (I’m a big Alabama Chanin fan), but I’ve been thinking more about hand-stitching some of my own sewing patterns. Alexis Bailey of Fibr and Cloth Studio has two eBooks: a Basic Hand-Sewing Stitch Guide and one on Hand Sewing Elastic Waist Pants so I bought them both last week and have been thinking about how best to deploy them.

Wishing you all a restorative weekend!

xo,
Rae

PS. I had coffee with my friend Emily on Wednesday and she brought me the arrangement of beautiful anemones from her garden that’s pictured at the top of this post. Thought you might enjoy it too. Also pictured: My parents at Lake Michigan, Hugo and Clem playing in the sand, Hugo running down the dune, Hugo swinging, the Japanese Garden at Frederick Meijer Gardens, which I visited the weekend before last with some friends.

PPS. see all of my Friday Faves here.