Thursday Poem
I hadn’t thought of this one in a long time (as in, nine years ago when I was going to memorize six poems and didn’t know anything “of grief, and of getting past it”) but it’s so great. “I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing.” Well said, Mary.
Starlings in Winter
by Mary Oliver
Chunky and noisy,
but with stars in their black feathers,
they spring from the telephone wire
and instantly
they are acrobats
in the freezing wind.
And now, in the theater of air,
they swing over buildings,
dipping and rising;
they float like one stippled star
that opens,
becomes for a moment fragmented,
then closes again;
and you watch
and you try
but you simply can’t imagine
how they do it
with no articulated instruction, no pause,
only the silent confirmation
that they are this notable thing,
this wheel of many parts, that can rise and spin
over and over again,
full of gorgeous life.
Ah, world, what lessons you prepare for us,
even in the leafless winter,
even in the ashy city.
I am thinking now
of grief, and of getting past it;
I feel my boots
trying to leave the ground,
I feel my heart
pumping hard, I want
to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.
Wednesday Project Roundup: Who Am I?
After about two years of earth-toned solids and plain silhouettes, I can’t get enough florals and ruffles lately. Is it just me following fashion? Is it spring?
Either way, here’s another ruffly top–McCalls 7977 in a Japanese-ish print that was on sale at Mood for $5 a yard (!). It’s a twill, which isn’t ideal for a blouse, but I like how it gives the sleeves structure. (I have enough left over for pants!)
Construction-wise, I skipped the cuffs and the top neck band because I just did not want to deal with interfacing. Instead, I did an elastic casing for the sleeves and finished the neck with bias binding. Super fast, super ruffly, super flowery.
It’s Tuesday (That Feels Like A Monday)
Give it a blep and show off your nose freckles and one black whisker. That’ll show it. 
Friday Links
1. Happy Lupercalia! Here are some lovely bird-themed Valentines for your sweetheart (tag yourself–I’m “now bread”).
2. I posted the essay”The Crane Wife” from The Paris Review a while back and just re-read it this week. It made me so proud of the work I’ve been doing on myself and in my relationship over the last 18 months. Acknowledging that you have needs–and articulating them–and respecting your partner’s needs–is so hard, but the alternative is this:
“The Crane Wife” is a story from Japanese folklore…In the story, there is a crane who tricks a man into thinking she is a woman so she can marry him. She loves him, but knows that he will not love her if she is a crane so she spends every night plucking out all of her feathers with her beak. She hopes that he will not see what she really is: a bird who must be cared for, a bird capable of flight, a creature, with creature needs. Every morning, the crane-wife is exhausted, but she is a woman again. To keep becoming a woman is so much self-erasing work. She never sleeps. She plucks out all her feathers, one by one.
Happy Lupercalia. Be honest with yourself and each other (and run through the street naked).
Strong At Any Age
Speaking of badass old people, I found Joan MacDonald on Instagram (via Swole Woman) who started weight training with her daughter at age 71 and now can do things I can’t (like pull ups):
View this post on Instagram
Sure the physical transformation is amazing (let’s hear it for squat butt! yay Joan!) but her captions are really great, too. From this post:
Don’t ever tell yourself you can’t do something. Lots of people my age have gotten to a point where they are so afraid of failing at something that they don’t allow themselves to try something new. I had that mindset too and it didn’t serve me. Making myself learn new things, new apps, learning how to use an I-phone, learning Spanish, learning how to meditate, learning how to exercise properly, heck all of the things I have been trying to learn to do these past two years have made me a better version of who I am today.
Do Not Go Gentle
This essay by an Australian novelist in her 70s (via Robin Sloan’s newsletter) is fire and goals, starting with the title: The insults of age: A one-woman assault on condescension.
I’ll let you read how she got fed up enough to get to this point but god I love her for this:
Habits of a lifetime peeled away. The world bristled with opportunities for a woman in her 70s to take a stand. I shouted on planes. I fought for my place in queues. I talked to myself out loud in public. I walked along the street singing a little song under my breath: “Back off. How dare you? Make my day.”
(See also: An Axe for the Frozen Sea for rage in your 40s)
Tuesday Project Roundup: Throwback
In 1999 I bought a bias cut skirt from The Gap, in silk twill (back when The Gap had things like silk twill). The print was a sort of paint-by-numbers green landscape with horses on it, with an elastic waistband finished with black lace, and I wore it out. I loved how it was sleek and flippy at the same time and I loved the print.
Then I saw the Evie Bias Skirt pattern and some leftover crane fabric in my stash and thought, “Wait a minute. I can make Flippy Printed Skirt 2.0.”
Interesting print in shades of green? Check. Elastic waist with lace trim? Check. Sleek yet flippy? Check check check.
You can’t go back in time but you sure can make new versions of your clothes.
Put It On My Tombstone
“Fabric and Cats”–there was a lot of both this weekend as I’m catsitting for friends and my own kitty has to help me with the fabric because the sewing room is sunny.
Friday Links
1. There’s been some good stuff on Instagram, like this from Notes From Your Therapist:
(Wow yes does it make me feel uncomfortable and holy shit do I not like feeling uncomfortable but guess what, nobody has ever died from just feeling uncomfortable.)
2. This is good, too, from You Look Like A Man:
(I DO want that, actually; I love being stronger in general but if we’re being honest I also love what lifting has done for my ass.)
3. This hybridizer lets you make your own mythical beastie.