From the Stillwater Days: On Rising Before the World

These floorboards were once cattle fencing, reclaimed and laid by hand,
and I rather love that the morning light falls on something built slowly. 

My Sweetest Mermaid Darlings,

and you, dear hearts of the Stillwater Petticoat Society,

This morning, before the kettle had even considered its gentle hum, I awoke with that soft, silvery awareness that comes only in the earliest hour — when the house is still, and the world has not yet remembered its noise.

I lay there a moment and whispered, quite simply, “Thank you for another day.”

And then, almost playfully, I asked, “What joy shall we discover today? What small delight has been tucked into the folds of it?”

It is a tender thing, this practise of greeting the morning before it greets you.

I have long believed — and not in a preachy manner, but as one woman confiding to another across a scrubbed pine table — that a lady must rise before her duties if she is to remain steady in her spirit. When my children were small, and life brimmed with timetables and lessons and sporting fields and church bells and casseroles, I would rise two or even three hours before the rest of the household stirred. The sky would still be indigo and the air cool and forgiving.

In those hours, I stretched my limbs gently, breathed deeply, prepared my breakfast in peace, and filled my journal with inked thoughts. At that time, I read scripture; now I sit in meditation. The form has altered, yet the devotion remains the same — a quiet tending of the inner garden before the outer world requests its share.

It was never about perfection.

It was about regulation.

When so many objectives were unfolding — homeschooling, driving to practises, managing the rhythm of a full household — I found that if I had first poured into myself, I was infinitely more capable of holding the day. Not rigidly. Not heroically. Simply steadily.

There is something profoundly anchoring about stretching the body before it carries responsibility, about breathing before speaking, about offering gratitude before answering.

I have learned — sometimes gently, sometimes through fatigue — that we cannot fill another’s cup from an empty teapot. A woman who waits until she is depleted before tending to herself begins to mistake exhaustion for virtue, and exhaustion is not virtue.

The morning ritual need not be grand. A few movements. A whispered thank you, a small notebook opened, or a cup held in both hands. Even five minutes of stillness before the world enters.

It is not selfishness.

It is sovereignty.

It is the quiet claiming of one’s own interior before the day asks for pieces of it.

I no longer wake to a house full of young voices, yet I continue the practise because it reminds me who I am before I become what is required. It makes me feel capable, even now — not in the frantic sense, but in the rooted one. As though my feet have found the sea floor before the tide begins to move.

If you are navigating many obligations, or even if your life appears outwardly calm, I would sit beside you and say only this: Rise a little earlier than the world expects of you.

Stretch your arms as though you are opening curtains in a small English cottage by the sea.

Breathe.

Give thanks.

Ask gently what joy awaits.

Then step into the day already nourished.

Not rushed.

Not striving.

Simply tended.

There is something rather magical about a tended woman.

She moves differently, speaks differently, and she does not spill over in agitation.

She pours.

Most affably yours 'til my next enchanting swim, LR

Restoration Rarely Looks Romantic in the Middle

My Dearest Mermaid Darlings, and you gentle souls of the Stillwater Petticoat Society,

There is something I must confess to you, and I shall do so without powdering it in sugar; restoration rarely looks romantic in the middle.

Indeed, if one were to wander past Scarlette Rose Cottage at present, one might not at first behold a storybook dwelling, but rather a house in conversation with itself — patches of primed wood where old slats once rested, flagstone climbing slowly round her skirts, tools stacked with intention after long months of interruption, and a certain dear knee of mine reminding me that even enchantresses must sometimes sit down.

And yet — oh, how I love her so.

For this is the honest part. The unbeautified, half-done, entirely human part.

I have chosen for her trim and doors a storybook green — a proper Victorian green, not the garish gloss of modern haste, but a softened satin sheen that catches the light like moss after rain. Not too shiny, lest she appear newly manufactured; not too flat, lest she fade into chalk and sorrow under Florida’s humid sun. Satin for the trim, my dears — for durability, for gentle definition — and eggshell for the body when her time comes. The Victorians understood such subtleties. Sheen is a character. Light is language.

One cannot simply fling paint upon a house and call it heritage.

Each finish is chosen with purpose, every decision tempered by discipline, and every stone set deliberately, laid in measured portions according to what my own means permit.

Yes, I am restoring her into a flagstone cottage — fully wrapped, entirely grounded — and one day, God willing and wind permitting, she shall wear a thatched crown and be surrounded by a garden so abundant that roses will conspire with lavender and bees shall think it Eden. But I am doing it slowly. With my own hands. With my own money. With my own creative will.

And that matters to me.

Not because a woman may not build her dreams in one grand swoop — many do, and I applaud them — but because there is a peculiar dignity in building brick by brick, stone by stone, payment by payment. There is a sovereignty in saying, “I shall fund this vision myself, and it shall rise according to my rhythm.”

Too many in this modern age crave instant arrival. Instant beauty. Instant completion. We are taught to leap from before to after without honouring the middle. Yet it is the middle that strengthens the bones of a thing.

Anything assembled too quickly often wears its haste like cheap varnish.

Beauty that endures is almost always patient.

I had a moment, I admit, when exposed red wood beneath removed slats offended my eye so grievously that I nearly declared the entire cottage must be painted brown at once to hide the indignity. But restraint prevailed—a little primer, a little blending, a steady breath, and calm returned.

We do not repaint the whole house because of a temporary patch.

How often in life do we do just that?

My loves, we are learning not only to restore cottages, but to restore ourselves.

We are learning that something of value — something weighty enough to withstand weather and time — must be built with steadiness. The world rushes. The world scrolls, and the world demands reveal after reveal. Yet I believe our souls crave something else entirely.

We long for substance, we honour skilled hands, and we cherish the gradual unfolding of something made with care.

Scarlette Rose Cottage does not need to be finished in a fortnight to be worthy. She is already becoming, and so are we.

So if you find yourself in the middle — of a dream, of a renovation, of a healing, of a becoming — do not despise the scaffolding. Do not curse the exposed boards. Do not repaint your entire life in haste because one corner looks unfinished.

Prime what requires tending, set your tools in quiet order, select your finish with discernment, and proceed with steady faith, for what is raised with patience is the very thing that endures.

And I should far rather dwell in something enduring than something instant.

Most affably yours ‘til my next enchanting swim, LR

On Becoming Before Being Seen

My Dearest Mermaid Darlings, and you, my gentle Stillwater Petticoat Society,

Pray sit with me a moment, for I have been thinking upon numbers — those curious little digits that flutter about the modern world like moths at a lantern — and how easily a woman might mistake their glow for warmth.

There was a season, a good while ago, in a former chapter of my life, when I observed the grand parade of Instagram with a wondering heart, seeing certain ladies garlanded in adoration, their photographs strewn with hearts and exclamations as though they had been crowned in laurel before a Roman crowd, and I, in quieter corners, felt the tremor of comparison tap politely upon my shoulder. Yet Providence, in her most instructive kindness, allowed me an experience so singular that it altered my sight altogether.

You know that I was once invited into the drawing rooms of a most notable production, interviewed not once but thrice, and placed before a board of executives who regarded me with steady eyes and measured speech; one gracious woman, with composure befitting her station, told me repeatedly that I was, in her estimation, “a superstar,” and she spoke it not with frenzy but with certainty, as though remarking upon the colour of the sky. At that time, my Instagram following was scarcely two hundred souls, and yet there I stood, considered, evaluated, and chosen — not because a crowd had applauded me, but because I had already become, within my own heart, the woman who belonged in such rooms.

It was then I perceived something of great consequence; visibility is not born of numbers; it is born of identity.

The opportunity itself proved lucrative and instructive, and though the show did not continue in the manner first imagined, it did not fail; it revealed. When the glitter quieted, and the announcement no longer danced upon feeds, several acquaintances slipped away as autumn leaves detach from a branch, and I saw, with a clarity that felt almost bracing, who had loved the ascent more than the woman ascending. It was a gentle sorrow, yet also a gift, for one cannot build a village of beauty upon the shifting sands of borrowed enthusiasm.

In those days, I learned two truths that now rest peacefully in my keeping. The first is that manifestation is no frivolous enchantment, no airy “woohoo” whispered beneath a crescent moon, but rather the sober art of becoming; when one so thoroughly inhabits a belief — when one dresses, speaks, labours, and thinks from that conviction — the world rearranges its chairs accordingly. I did not conjure a reality show with smoke and incantation; I aligned my life so wholly with story, heritage, and cottage-laced charm that those who dealt in stories recognised me as their own. Identity first, reflection after.

The second truth is this: Instagram may applaud you, yet it cannot complete you.

Numbers may rise like a tide and recede with equal swiftness, and if one’s sense of worth floats upon that tide, she will forever be at the mercy of the weather. To seek visibility as proof of value is to place one’s heart in a hall of mirrors, where every glance asks, “Am I enough now?” and never quite receives an answer. The app is not wicked, nor are followers foolish; it is merely a lantern, and lanterns are meant to illuminate what already exists, not to fabricate substance where there is none.

When I look now upon those accounts adorned with admiration, I feel neither envy nor hunger, but a curious tenderness; for I know that free parcels and flurries of praise are pleasant trifles, yet they are not the marrow of a life. A woman must be rooted more deeply than applause, or she will find herself performing for crumbs of affirmation whilst her truest work waits patiently in the wings.

If you believe in manifesting, believe it in this mature and measured way; become the woman, and the stage will find you; cultivate the garden, and the bees will come of their own accord; steady your nervous system in the knowledge of who you are, and the world’s recognition will be a by-product, not a necessity. What is sought from insecurity can never satisfy, but what grows from wholeness bears fruit in due season.

I remain, in my own quiet breast, entirely content to know that I am capable of grand rooms and candlelit corners alike, and if the world should choose to look upon me, let it be because I have built something worthy of being seen, not because I have pleaded for its gaze. And if ever the numbers falter or the algorithms grow temperamental, I shall still be here, stitching, writing, restoring, and loving the life before me — for that, my darlings, is where true fulfilment resides.

Take Joy, and do not surrender your worth to a tally.

Most affably yours ‘til my next enchanting swim, LR 

A Quiet Word on Manuscripts

My dearest mermaid darlings of the Stillwater Petticoat Society,

There is a most curious and comforting steadiness that settles upon the heart when a story is first entrusted to ink rather than summoned upon a glowing screen. I have long held the habit of beginning each manuscript by hand, as though I were coaxing a shy creature from the reeds. The gentle drag of pen upon paper bids the mind to slow its gallop and take a measured walk instead, and in that softened pace the tale reveals itself with far greater honesty. Ink requires patience; it does not tolerate haste, nor does it flatter distraction. It asks only that one sit, breathe, and listen.

When I write in this manner, I feel as though I am in quiet company with those women of former days who composed their letters and novels by lamplight, trusting the rhythm of their own pulse more than the ticking of the clock. The story is not forced forward; it unfolds, stitch by stitch, like a length of silk drawn steadily through waiting fabric. And thus it is protected — not from labour, but from hurry.

Below, I have opened the door of my little writing room a trifle wider and spoken more fully of this practise — for those among you who delight not only in the finished book, but in the tender rhythm that lives beyond the pages.

May you find there a cadence to accompany your own.

On Loving Instagram Without Losing Oneself

My Dearest Mermaid Darlings of the Stillwater Petticoat Society, 

Pray, draw your chair nearer, for I wish to speak of something exceedingly modern and yet most ancient in its temptation — the little glowing screen that rests so innocently in our palms and yet can stir the most curious tides within a woman’s heart.

You know well that I have no desire to flee from the world in dramatic renunciation, nor to cast my Instagram into the sea as though it were some malevolent talisman, for I confess quite plainly that I love it — I love the quiet gallery of beautiful homes, the gentle exchange of thought, the correspondence between kindred spirits across oceans and hedgerows — and yet I began to observe, with the sober clarity of a woman no longer content to be ruled by habit, that there were moments when curiosity was not truly curiosity at all, but a subtle leaning outward to measure myself against another’s lantern.

It was not envy in its loud and unbecoming form, nor was it bitterness, but rather a small internal tremor — a tightening so slight one could easily ignore it — and I realised, with the tenderness one reserves for self-examination, that deleting the app would not mend that tremor, for if a lady has not tended the garden within, the weeds shall sprout elsewhere, whether in a parish hall, a marketplace, or the drawing room of comparison; thus I resolved not to retreat, but to remain, and to learn the far more delicate art of setting the phone down when my spirit whispered, “Enough.”

There is a most curious power in that gesture — the quiet placing of the device upon the table and the turning instead to one’s own life — to a teacup that requires washing, to a book half-read, to a husband waiting in the lamplit hush of evening — for in that turning I felt not deprived, but steadied, as though some invisible thread had been gathered back into my own keeping, and I perceived that regulation is not the stern refusal of pleasure, but the gracious choosing of peace over restless scanning.

How easy it is, in this age of perpetual unveiling and hurried transformation, to believe that one must either withdraw entirely or surrender wholly, yet I have discovered a middle path — to love the gallery without bowing to it, to admire another’s tapestry without unravelling one’s own, to open the app with intention and close it without agitation — and this, my loves, feels less like conquest and more like integration, as though the sea within me has grown calm enough that passing ships no longer dictate its tide.

I do not write this as counsel from a lofty tower, but as confession from a woman who has known the subtle exhaustion of comparison and has chosen, day by day, to return to her own hearth, and if you, too, have felt that faint stirring when another’s life seems polished and swift and endlessly renewed, may you remember that your task is not to vanish nor to compete, but to remain — to inhabit your own rooms so fully that no curated corridor can persuade you to abandon them.

For when I set the phone down and turned toward my own small, ordinary miracles, I felt steadier, and steadiness, I am persuaded, is a far more exquisite adornment than endless novelty; it is the jewel that does not glitter ostentatiously, but glows with quiet assurance, and in that glow I find myself loved without condition, anchored without striving, and content to be precisely where I stand.

Most affably yours ‘til my next enchanting swim, 

Lady Raquel 

Unentangled: A Letter to the Woman Who Chose Peace

Stillwater, where peace does not argue. 

My Dearest Mermaid Darlings of the Stillwater Petticoat Society,

Permit me to draw my chair a little closer to yours, to smooth my skirts beside the hearth, and to speak in that low and tender tone one reserves for a beloved friend who has known both the frost of exclusion and the warmth of her own becoming, for there is a peculiar sorrow — and an even more peculiar strength — that arises when a woman begins to awaken into her own soul and finds, to her astonishment, that not all will rejoice in her rising; indeed, some will call her strange, others misguided, and a few, in their tremor of certainty, may even whisper that she has wandered into shadow, when in truth she has only wandered inward.

It is a curious thing, is it not, that the moment a lady ceases to ask permission to exist in her own spiritual skin, she is suddenly informed by anxious sentinels that she has stepped beyond the pale, as though the garden of God were bordered by their particular fence and patrolled by their own trembling convictions; yet I have observed, with the calm of one who has weathered many a squall, that those who cry “danger” most loudly are often fortifying the ramparts of their own fear, for when one’s faith is fused not to love but to alarm, every differing bloom appears a weed, and every sovereign woman a threat to the carefully tended order of things.

You must understand, my loves, that when you no longer quake beneath the opinions of others, when accusations fall upon your doorstep like leaves that cannot enter unless you open the door, there arises within you a most delightful lightness, a sensation as though you have at last set down a heavy trunk you had been carrying since girlhood, and in its place you discover something far sturdier than defiance — you discover steadiness; not the rigidity of stone, but the rooted grace of an old oak whose branches may sway yet whose heartwood does not splinter at every passing gust.

There was a season — and perhaps you know it well — when being misunderstood felt like annihilation, when family alienation stung like salt upon an open wound, when spiritual accusation threatened to unhouse your very sense of belonging, and yet, instead of shrinking into compliance or sharpening yourself into perpetual defence, you chose — sometimes trembling, sometimes resolute — to heal, to regulate, to return again and again to your own centre until disagreement no longer signified danger and judgement no longer dictated your worth; this, my darling, is not arrogance, nor rebellion, nor some theatrical emancipation, but the quiet consolidation of the soul.

You will notice, as your spine grows straight and your breath grows even, that many still live upon the battlements of defence, interpreting every differing thought as invasion and every unconventional woman as a herald of doom, and though it may at first tempt you toward a subtle superiority — that faint and fleeting whisper that you have grown while they have not — I entreat you to smile gently at such a flicker, for it is merely the echo of the part of you that worked so very hard to survive, and it dissolves most sweetly when met with compassion rather than censure.

True maturity, I have found, is not the absence of ego but the refusal to enthrone it, not the impulse to correct the world but the willingness to let others be precisely where they are upon their own arc, for when you can delete what disturbs you, close the door without slamming it, and whisper sincerely, “May you find peace,” you have already stepped beyond the battlefield; you are no longer interested in proving, persuading, or performing righteousness, but in tending your own lamp and keeping its flame steady for those who wander in need of warmth.

And oh, what a revelation it is to discover that the most potent form of strength is not loudness but lightness, not reaction but rootedness, not conquest but authorship, for when you cease to build your identity in opposition to others and instead fashion it from the silken threads of your own lived truth, you become psychologically expensive — unbaitable, unshameable, uncoerced — and in troubled times it is to such women that others instinctively gravitate, not because they shout the loudest, but because they remain the calmest harbour in a season of restless seas.

So if you, my sweet mermaid, have been called peculiar, misguided, or even wicked for daring to inhabit your own spiritual sovereignty, take heart, for your task is not to wrestle shadows nor to patrol the beliefs of those who fear you, but to remain soft and boundaried, open-hearted and discerning, wishing others well without surrendering your ground, and continuing, with the serene confidence of a lady who knows her lineage, to build a life so anchored in truth that even accusation cannot rearrange it.

I write this not as one who has never felt the chill of exclusion, but as one who has flourished despite it, who has learned that being unentangled is far more powerful than being victorious, and who would far rather be rooted and luminous than universally approved, and if ever you doubt your steadiness, remember that the oak does not argue with the wind, nor does the sea apologise for its tide — it simply remains itself, vast and faithful, and in so doing becomes a refuge for all who are weary.

Most affably yours ‘til my next enchanting swim, LR

On Self-Authorship and the Quiet Injury of Unnamed Things

From the Stillwater Days

My dearest Mermaid Darlings and beloved members of the Stillwater Petticoat Society,

There comes, often without herald or ceremony and at a moment far quieter than one might expect, a realisation that settles gently yet irrevocably upon a woman’s spirit, wherein she understands that she must at last take the pen back into her own hand, not for the purpose of contesting another’s version of events, nor to plead her case before a fickle and ever-attentive world, but merely to stand within the truth she herself has lived and to write from that ground alone, free of borrowed ornament, softened omission, or the restless desire for witnesses to affirm what her own conscience already knows.

I have been much occupied of late with thoughts of self-authorship, with that sober and inwardly luminous labour of remaining faithful to one’s experience even as more palatable narratives pass easily from mouth to mouth, and with the peculiar ache that sometimes attends this faithfulness — an ache not born of loss alone, but of discrepancy, of observing words employed too lightly and lives recounted with a gentleness they did not earn, until something within the spirit recoils, not in envy nor bitterness, but in allegiance to truth itself, which resents being made decorative.

For those who have truly begun again, without inheritance to soften the descent, without unseen scaffolding erected beyond the public frame, without the luxury of stepping neatly into a next chapter already prepared, beginning anew is neither a metaphor nor a literary convenience, but a lived winter crossed with bare feet and steady resolve, a home rebuilt plank by plank, a life re-entered without applause or reassurance, and it is this unspoken weight, borne quietly in the bones, that sharpens one’s awareness when tales of ruin are told without rubble and reinvention is praised without the reckoning that ordinarily attends it.

I do not set these reflections down in a spirit of accusation, nor with any desire to convene a tribunal of judgment, for the world is already overburdened with courts of opinion and verdicts rendered with undue haste, but rather to remind myself — and you, my dearest companions — that no telling, however polished or warmly received, possesses the power to diminish the truth you have lived, nor does your authority require correction of the record, comparison of paths, or the eventual unraveling of another’s carefully sustained illusion in order to be made secure.

There is, I have found, a particular freedom in laying aside the longing for visible vindication, a freedom that neither demands forgiveness upon command nor insists that justice arrive upon a public timetable, but instead releases the quiet hope that another woman’s life must be exposed, corrected, or undone for one’s own story to make sense, for self-authorship asks only that you refuse to abandon your knowing in exchange for peace with appearances, and that you remain seated within your truth even when it is less adorned and more costly than those that travel easily.

Some stories must be believed loudly in order to be endured at all, while others are endured so deeply that repetition becomes unnecessary, and if you find yourself among the latter — those who have lived without spectacle, rebuilt without illusion, and carried on without the comfort of collective applause — you may rest in the knowledge that you need neither to correct the record, sharpen your voice for hearing, nor measure your path against another’s polish, for your authority resides not in what you proclaim, but in what you have survived without ever consenting to lie to yourself.

Let us then continue, quietly and steadfastly, to write our lives as they are — salt-stained, hand-stitched, and honest — leaving ornamental narratives to those who require them for shelter, trusting that the sea, which knows the weight of true crossings, recognises the difference at once, and that in time, so too, shall we.

Most affably yours til' my next enchanting swim, LR

On Woven Boundaries

The first wattle fence I ever made. 

On Woven Boundaries

{A letter left upon the kitchen table}

My dear mermaid darlings, and you tender souls of the Stillwater Petticoat Society,

I was thinking this morning of the first wattle fence I ever made, and how I did not so much decide upon it as simply find myself weaving, branches gathered in my arms and laid where the earth itself seemed to suggest a line, flowers placed not for show but as quiet markers of care, and Oliver hopping freely about the whole affair, quite unconcerned with whether anything sensible was being accomplished, which in truth felt rather perfect, for there was no urgency then, no need to name the work, only the gentle pleasure of hands moving and something slowly taking shape.

That was nearly a decade ago now, long before I had words for what these small acts were teaching me, and long before I understood how in England the winter months have always belonged to hedgelaying, that old and patient craft of renewing boundaries not by cutting them away but by bending and weaving living growth so that it may continue, a way of tending that protects without hardening and shelters without closing the world out.

A wattle fence carries the same quiet knowing, never pretending permanence, never demanding authority, simply saying — here is where something is being cared for — and that first fence held flowers and soil and a small creature moving exactly as he pleased, doing its work without explanation, without performance, without the slightest concern for whether it would be noticed.

As the years have passed and my own life has softened into clearer shape, I have come to see how much these woven things mirror the seasons we move through as women, how there are times when we grow outward with enthusiasm and other times when the truer work is returning to strengthen what already stands, not beginning anew but tending gently, choosing boundaries that breathe rather than walls that brace.

Hedgelaying season feels like that to me now, a season for mending rather than striving, for shaping without severing, for remembering that the most enduring structures are made slowly and by hand, with enough kindness to allow life to move through them, and I find I have always preferred fences you can see through, boundaries that are firm yet gracious, and ways of living that do not require explanation to be true.

So I continue to weave as I always have, trusting that what is made with care will hold, that what needs passing through will do so naturally, and that a life well tended, like a hedge well laid, knows exactly how to stand without becoming unkind.

With love, and twigs still upon my sleeves,

— Lady Raquel 

I share small daily moments and seasonal reflections over on Instagram, for those who enjoy such things.

A Letter on Quiet Lives and Loud Expectations

Dear mermaid darlings and the lovely Stillwater Petticoat Society,

I have been noticing something of late, and I wonder if you have felt it too.

At times, as I wander through these so-called slow living and old-fashioned spaces — the linen aprons, the sourdough loaves, the rows of industrious little hands — my chest tightens rather than softens. Instead of calm, I feel a faint unease, like a breeze that carries the memory of a storm long past.

These women are always doing.  

Cooking from scratch, teaching their children, tending homes and gardens, building dream houses plank by plank, posting daily, filming constantly, offering themselves endlessly. There is scarcely a moment when the hands are not busy, the mind not occupied, the body not required.

They call it devotion.  

They call it purpose.  

They call it a beautiful life.

Yet what I see — and what my body remembers — is something altogether different.

I see exhaustion worn like a badge of honour.  

Dark circles framed as virtue.  

Rest postponed, justified, or quietly denied.  

A life where stillness must be earned, and silence feels suspicious.

I know this life.  

I lived it once.

And it nearly cost me everything.

When I was younger, I carried a home, children, responsibility, faith, and expectation upon my back without pause or mercy. There was always one more thing to do, one more soul to tend, one more measure of goodness to prove. I did not know how to stop — nor was I ever given permission to do so.

The world praised my strength while my spirit quietly disappeared.

So now, when I see these images — no matter how charming the crockery or golden the light — my nervous system stirs. It is not judgment. It is recognition. The body does not forget what survival felt like.

What troubles me most is not the work itself, but how exhaustion is sanctified. How suffering is reframed as calling. How a woman’s worth becomes entangled with her usefulness, her output, her endurance.

This is not slowness.  

This is labour dressed in lace.

Authentic slow living — the kind that heals rather than hollows — leaves room for margins, for unseen days, for afternoons that accomplish nothing at all. It allows creativity to arise from rest, not pressure. It honours the woman herself, not just the life she produces.

These days, I choose a quieter rhythm. A gentler authority. A life that does not require constant evidence of its value. I no longer confuse depletion with devotion, nor busyness with meaning.

And if you feel that same tightening — that subtle tremor in your chest when you scroll — please know this: there is nothing wrong with you.

Your body may simply be remembering a life it survived.  

And it may be lovingly reminding you that you are no longer required to live there.

We are allowed to build beautiful lives without breaking ourselves upon them.

A Small Blessing for the Woman Who Is Learning to Rest

May you never again mistake exhaustion for holiness,  nor believe that a life must be heavy to be worthy.

May your days contain pauses that require no explanation, and rest that arrives without guilt or apology.

May your hands learn that they are allowed to be still, and your heart remember that it is not measured by what it produces.

May you choose beauty that soothes rather than strains, and rhythms that leave room for breath, wonder, and quiet joy.

And when the world grows loud with its expectations, may you feel no obligation to answer.

You are already enough.  

The tide does not hurry, and neither must you.

With affection,  

R.

From the Stillwater Days

—reflections for women who are no longer willing to prove their worth through exhaustion.