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 

When Place Speaks First

My dearest Mermaid Darlings, and cherished members of The Stillwater Petticoat Society,

There are seasons when a woman feels no urge to hurry, explain, or prove.

She knows when a thing must wait for its proper hour.

I have found myself often asked — gently, curiously — why I place such importance upon where I gather, and why I am content to wait for the proper setting before I open my doors.

I shall answer you as one answers a trusted friend.

I have never believed that meaningful work arrives alone. It brings its surroundings with it — its light, its tempo, its manners. A gathering does not begin with the first guest; it commences the moment one steps into a place that knows how to receive them.

A place, you see, speaks first.

Long before anyone spoke of leadership, branding, or mission, women understood this instinctively. They chose rooms that softened the voice, gardens that had learned patience and houses that knew how to hold a conversation without interrupting it.

Such places required no instruction. They taught by presence alone.

I have always held — perhaps unfashionably — that beauty is not indulgence. It is a responsibility made visible. A well-kept environment does not impress; it reassures. It says quietly, you may rest here, you may think clearly here, you may be held without performance.

When the work concerns preservation, memory, continuity, and care — when it asks people to slow, to notice, to remember that they belong to something longer than themselves — then the environment must already be doing that work on our behalf.

I do not possess a talent for persuasion, nor do I desire one. I prefer invitations, and invitations require the correct vessel.

This is why I wait.

Not from hesitation, but from respect — for the work, for the people it will one day receive, and for the places of long memory with which I remain in thoughtful conversation. Historic houses, landscapes, and estates — Chinsegut Hill amongst them — were never meant to serve as backdrops. They were built to teach quietly, to set a standard without speaking.

When gatherings are held in such settings, something gentle but unmistakable occurs. Voices lower of their own accord. Attention sharpens. Grace asserts itself without instruction.

That is environment-led stewardship, long practised and rarely named.

I am not postponing. I am preparing. I am tending the ground so that when the doors do open, the place itself will greet you before I ever do.

And when that day comes — when we gather in a setting that has earned its years — I hope you will feel what I have always felt in such places:

That you have arrived somewhere that understands how to hold you.

Until then, I remain exactly where I ought to be —

listening, tending, and keeping the kettle warm.

With enduring affection,

Lady Raquel