march favorites

recommitting to healing my attention span through creative projects

Dear Reader,

I spent the last month or so traveling to North Carolina, Florida and then New York. I’ve now been home for a week and a half and I’m trying to get back into my self care routines. One thing I really struggle with is putting immense pressure on myself after traveling to have everything sorted out and immediately adjust back to being home. It takes time to re-adjust and catch up after being away! Does anyone else struggle with this?

I spent a week in Florida with my mom and my sister and my grandpa who has dementia. We visited my grandparents’ condo for the last time before we sell it since my grandma’s passing in October. I grew up going to that condo every spring since I was born and had so many happy memories there. It was really emotional to be there for the first time without my grandma and to try to parse out things that I want to keep and the emotions of the beginning stages of figuring out what to do with everything. It was really nice to have some dedicated time with my Grandpa and to connect with him. Even though he doesn’t really remember who I am, it’s still really meaningful for me to care for him and to make him as comfortable and happy as possible now.

One of my best friends Elizabeth had her first solo art show in New York and I really wanted to be there to support her, so I decided to fly from Florida straight to New York instead of going back to Detroit. It was such a delight to be a part of the opening party and the gallery open hours where we worked on paper mache, drawing and she facilitated an embroidery workshop and an art supply swap. It was really nice being back in New York and spending time with friends, even though it was a short trip. I got a really lovely silk button down blouse and a cashmere and wool navy double breasted ankle length coat from my friend Amber’s vintage store in New Jersey that I have been wearing nonstop since I got them.

I’ve been taking so much in lately and I feel I would benefit from hitting the brakes on the intake. I’m working on cultivating more intentional silence throughout my days instead of always playing music or a podcast in my headphones. It helps keep me grounded in the present moment more. The temptation to always be engaging in some form of entertainment is sooo tempting though! I go back and forth on this. Here are some things I have been enjoying lately.

Movies & Shows I’ve Been Watching

• White Lotus Season 3 - IKYK

• Anora - finally watched this! I feel like “enjoyed” isn’t the right word for it but I thought it was a great depiction of working class people hustling and being used and disposed of by the upper class. I’m absolutely amazed that Mikey Madison learned pole and Russian for this role. Hats off to her!

• Persuasion, 2007 - I am on a mission to watch every Jane Austen adaptation! I liked this one withe Sally Hawkins as Anne Wentworth.

• Norma Rae, 1979 - I had been wanting to see this for ages and finally saw it was available On Demand on my grandparents’ cable. This movie tells the story of the effort to unionize a cotton mill in a small Southern town that is run by and entirely dependent on the mill. Sally Field is fantastic as a single mom and outspoken employee of the mill who just wants to make a fair living. One of my favorite movie genres is “woman activist” so this really fit the bill for me. Absolutely loved it!

What I’m Listening To

• Selena Gomez album

• Fine, Rocky Top Ballads

• Evan Cheadle, Fault Line Serenade

• still listening to Cameron Winter

• Men I Trust new album

• Haim single “Relationships” and revisiting their 2013 album Days Are Gone

• the Chappell Roan song The Giver

Creative Projects

I starting taking a ceramics class again! I did a little wheel throwing and made the largest piece I have ever made with coil building. I am really into making organic coil built vessels lately. It’s been fun to watch Youtube tutorials on hand building and wheel throwing. I love learning new techniques and feeling like I’m really digging into this medium.

I have also been baking sourdough and getting excited about learning more each time I practice and make a loaf. It took me so long to get the hang of baking sourdough and every time I get a nice loaf of bread it is immensely satisfying.

I played with oil pastels last weekend and I want to do that more. I love the vibrant colors of oil pastels and the smudgy texture it creates. Opening myself up to creative play is so important for my creative process. It can also be challenging as a person who has monetized my creations to just enjoy the process without it needing to BE something if you know what I mean.

Spring Sewing Projects

• Sunrise Skort - I cut this skort out in AUGUST 2023 and finally made in March 2025. It’s soo cute and I can’t wait to wear this nonstop this summer. I used a secondhand cherry fabric from Arts & Scraps.

• Coe Trousers - I made this pair of trousers using secondhand corduroy from Arts and Scraps. I'm thinking about doing a full post documenting my recent sewing projects. Are you into that? LMK!

  

Inspiring social media accounts

@foodrelics and @aimeefrance

I’ve been trying to take some time away from social media, but before I did that I really got into these creators. I say trying because I fall off the wagon and get back on again as I continue trying to regain my attention span and not be tempted to mentally check out and mindlessly scroll. Foodrelics on TikTok makes the best videos on pairing cheese with teas that is hard to really explain why it’s so enticing unless you just watch it. Morgana’s enthusiasm for simply tasting and enjoying the experience of food is so inspiring to me and an important reminder on how to romanticize your own life. I have loved following Aimee France for a while on Instagram. She makes the most incredibly artistic cakes and posts about various beautiful meals she makes for herself. The way she speaks is so unique to her and I love hearing her explain things. Both of these ladies embody the slowing down and enjoyment of small moments of creating and eating beautiful foods that inspires me in my own life.

Reading

I recently ordered the Tara Brach book Radical Acceptance from Thriftbooks as my library didn’t have it. I see that it’s available via audiobook on Spotify but I want to have the option to read the physical book as well. Every page I’ve read so far in this book seriously hits home for me. Tara Brach’s work has been so healing to me on my own journey of self love and spirituality.

I got Pure Color by Sheila Heti from the library. It’s been a slow start so far and I haven’t felt super called to keep picking it up. I loved Motherhood by her and I really want to like this! I am going to give it a little longer before I jumps ship to see if I can get into it.

I felt very pleased with myself that I read two books while on vacation in Florida! One I got from the store while I was down there called One True Loves by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I always love her books, they feel like watching a movie to me. It was like if you imagine the plot of Castaway but from the woman’s perspective of having her partner go missing and presumed dead only to have him come back and the grief that comes with that. Gut wrenching but good read. The other book I read in Florida is The Indigo Girl by Natasha Boyd. My friend Amber loaned me this book - she bought it at a bookstore while visiting South Carolina. It takes place in SC and tells the true story of a 16 year old girl in colonial South Carolina who is tasked with running her father’s three plantations while he leaves for his military duty in Antigua. She hears of the magical plant called indigo and thinks that learning to grow this plant will help her family’s plantations get out of debt and become profitable, despite its difficulty to grow and the fact that only the enslaved people seem to have an understanding of how to dye with the plant. The story was extremely interesting, particularly as a natural dyer who works with indigo. There is so much history of indigo that is painfully intertwined with chattel slavery all over the world and this book goes into part of that, albeit in a more surface level way. I enjoyed learning about this woman, Eliza Lucas and it made me wonder who the other women were who contributed so much to society but their names have never been credited. I read that after her death, George Washington was a pall bearer at her funeral - that’s how impactful she was to the creation of early America. Pretty interesting stuff.

I listened to this episode with Liz Tran on Moonbeaming and realized I had acutally pre-ordered her book last summer and haven’t picked it up yet. I am going to start reading it. I also subscribed to her podcast too, I’m looking forward to checking it out.

Anyway, that’s all I have for you today. I’ve had this post languishing in my drafts for weeks now and I am just now publishing it at the end of April - oops. What have you been watching/reading/listening to these days? Seems like the world is really going to pieces but the music that’s being released lately has been quite good… you win some you lose some!!

xoxo

Meg