On Temperament and the Taking Off of Costumes

My dearest Mermaid Darlings, and my cherished Stillwater Petticoat Society,

There is a question I am asked with such regular cheerfulness that I have come to anticipate it before it is even spoken, and it is this: “Do you do reenactments?” — as though I might at any moment unpin my collar, slip from my petticoat, and reveal a modern creature concealed beneath the muslin.

I always smile, for I know no harm is meant, and yet I answer swiftly, almost protectively, “No, my love — I simply live this way,” and in that gentle correction there is more tenderness than defensiveness, for what I am safeguarding is not an outfit but an orientation of the soul.

I have dressed thus since my youth, long before hashtags gathered around the word cottage like bees to clover, long before slow living was packaged into square frames and sold back to women as salvation, long before linen aprons became profitable and enamel basins photogenic; I wore the skirts when it was peculiar, when it invited curious glances in grocery aisles, when no applause accompanied it and no algorithm carried it further than the hedgerow of my own little life.

And so, if I am to be entirely honest with you — and I should like to be — I have found myself, at times, unsettled by the manner in which certain aesthetics are donned and then quietly set aside when the season turns, for it is not the painting of nails nor the dining in cheerful establishments nor the seeking of modern comforts that stirs my spirit into disquiet, but rather the sensation that what is presented and what is lived do not always walk hand in hand.

I have observed, with no small measure of introspection, that what troubles me is not indulgence but incongruence, not modernity but misalignment, for when an image of rustic self-sufficiency is curated whilst another’s hands and the chickens tend the garden are cared for by an elder relative whose labour goes unnamed, something in my nervous system registers a soft fracture, as though the spell were cast in one breath and broken in the next.

And perhaps the truest confession is this: I have paid for this life in courage.

I wore the dresses before they were admired.

I chose slowness before it was admired.

I lived quietly before quiet became enviable.

There is a human reflex, is there not, that winces ever so slightly when others are applauded for what one has carried privately for decades, and I would be disingenuous were I to pretend that such a thought has never brushed against my heart like a cool draft beneath a door.

Yet I do not write this from superiority, nor from bitterness, nor from a desire to indict anyone for experimentation, for many souls are simply trying on identities in the way one tries on bonnets before discovering which shade best suits her complexion, and there is no wickedness in searching; what I am describing is something subtler — a devotion to coherence.

It is coherence that I revere.

It is continuity that I find beautiful.

When I think of Tasha Tudor — whose name has become nearly synonymous with storybook domesticity — I do not think first of her pinafores, nor her goats, nor her Vermont garden in bloom, but of the fact that she did not remove her way of living when the visitors departed; she illustrated on Tuesdays and baked on Thursdays and milked on Saturdays with equal sincerity, not because anyone watched but because it was consonant with her temperament.

Temperament, my loves, cannot be sustained as theatre for long.

One may wear simplicity as linen for a season, one may caption spirituality in sepia tones, one may curate slow living between salon appointments and curated dinners, yet continuity has a way of revealing what is costume and what is constitution, for eventually the tone alters, the devotion thins, the aesthetic shifts with the wind, and the life rearranges itself back into its native rhythm.

And here is where my vulnerability unfurls most tenderly before you; when someone asks if I reenact, I feel, beneath my smile, a quiet ache that what has been my refuge might be mistaken for performance, that my orientation might be reduced to theatre, that the devotion of decades could be mistaken for trend participation, and perhaps that is why I bristle when I see the aesthetic worn lightly — because I fear being folded into the same misunderstanding.

I do not wish to be confused with costume.

I wish to be known for temperament.

There was a season when cottagecore swelled like a tide, and many rode it beautifully and briefly, and some were carried swiftly into visibility, and I remained upon the shore in the same apron I had always worn, neither amplified nor diminished, simply continuing, and if I am to confess another small and human truth, I have wondered in softer hours why the wave crowned others and passed me by, though I had been standing there long before it arrived.

Yet tides are dramatic, and shorelines endure.

I was not building a moment.

I was building a life.

And lives are slower.

So if something within me tightens when aesthetic devotion appears to toggle with popularity, it is not because I begrudge anyone her manicure or her modernity, but because I hold sacred the integration of image and embodiment, and I have learned through many trials that stability is not forged in applause but in repetition.

Perhaps what unsettles me most is not falseness in others but the fear of being mistaken for it myself.

And so I write this not to accuse, but to clarify my own heart before you, for I would rather be a woman of quiet continuity than a fleeting spectacle, rather rooted than radiant for a moment and gone the next, rather misunderstood in my steadfastness than celebrated for a costume I intend to remove.

If I am a Victorian mermaid, it is not because it photographs prettily, but because it soothes my nervous system, steadies my spirit, and aligns with the inner architecture of who I have always been.

And that, my dearest darlings, is not theatre.

It is home.

Most affably yours 'til my next enchanting swim, LR

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