You permit me use of earth

Spring in the city

Spring is so bright, so garish in its hopefulness. Even the wildly fluctuating weather brings me joy. Look, see! I want to shout. My plants, though covered in a film of sleet, are coming back to life! I love every bit of this season.

The house is progressing quickly, and the project has been especially thrilling lately. This past week, windows and doors were installed (see below, in action), and drywall is mostly up in all the new rooms.

Lord willing, we hope to move back in at some point in early July. I’ve been so grateful for our builders and our project manager, who have been such a generous, hard-working, and detail-oriented team. I’m amazed at the work that they do, that anyone can turn a drawing on paper into this, an actual, functional house.

On the interior-design front, I’ve been pulling the trigger on some long-researched, long-awaited décor purchases. After looking at approximately 8,000 oushak rugs on Etsy, I finally bought a gigantic vintage rug from Turkey for the new family room. It’s supposed to arrive this week, and I am a bundle of frivolous anticipation and nerves. For my birthday, Mom also got me a convex (or witch’s eye) sunburst mirror from an antique store in France, which I suspect will light up my life and heart in the front hallway. (I have high expectations.)

The garden may suffer from some neglect this year, given our constraints and absence, but I hope we’ll be able to pull some things off this growing season. Repairing our biggest raised bed is a top priority, but the scarcity of cedar has proven to be a serious barrier.

At home, the boys are growing by leaps and bounds (sometimes literally, in Felix’s case, as he can army-crawl with stunning speed). They had such a happy Easter, and it was a sweet weekend as a family (and with friends).

These springtime babies have been enjoying each other’s company a lot lately, which warms the heart.

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For contemplation:

A favorite growing-season poem: Vespers [In your extended absence, you permit me].

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Things I’m probably going to get into* next

(And by “get into” I mean = read a bunch of books about)

• Foraging

• Local trees and shrubs

• The intersection between MLM culture + moms + essential oils + greenwashing + “wellness” quackery

• Gyms, like diets, are bad for you/don’t work

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Currently Reading

• Forest Bathing, Qing Li

• The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, Bruce Perry and Maia Szalavitz

• In the Margins, Elena Ferrante

• Leading Content Design, Rachel McConnell