A Month's Worth: January 2025

Blessed Imbolc!

I am at the point of winter where I become righteously “over it.” For those unfamiliar with Imbolc, it’s a Wheel of the Year sabbat. The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of feast days and rituals celebrating the changing of the seasons. Imbolc is the first day of Spring (with Ostara, the Spring Equinox, being the middle of Spring). This makes way more sense to me than saying the equinox is the first day of Spring'; like with the Summer Soltice, the longest day of the year should be the middle point of Summer, not the starting point. Anyway! If you’re interested in learning more about Imbolc or the Wheel of the Year, google it! The internet is vast and generally knowledgable!

As for art this month, I’ve got a bit going for me:

I finished my beloved chairs.

Mmmm, look at how that plaid lines up! I will give my mom props on this: she told me as she saw the fabric, “Make sure those lines line up.” and despite all my other feelings about everything, I did it and it is incredibly satisfying.

I also rewebbed one of the chairs! I wrote before how I’d have to learn how to reweb - well, I looked it up on the internet and it was like “do it the way your chair needs it,” which, like, great advice. My chairs had the straps stapled to the bottom of the chair which is not my preferred way to do anything, but I figured the chair must have needed it.

But then I was chatting with my furniture supplier and I saw he had a very similar chair he was working on. I asked him if he’d ever rewebbed a chair and he looked at me in a slightly baffled sort of way and said the chairs usually just come with these clips. THEN HE SHOWED ME HOW THE STRAP CLIPS JUST FIT IN THE SLOTS! MY FRIENDS. !!!!

I ordered new straps with clips and after taking out 50 staples, I PUT THE CLIP IN THE SLOT AND I WAS DONE. Thanks, Ryan. You are the best.

I’ve also been knitting and picked embroidery back up today, which I haven’t done since I left the classroom in 2021.

The knitting isn’t anything fancy, but I’m mainly practicing how to read patterns again which is helpful. Also, it’s nice to have something to do that isn’t surfing my phone.

I’m pretty excited about the embroidery kit! My mom actually got two of these because she wanted me to teach her how to embroider but she tried the first square and hated it; and when you’re 72, I fully support not taking the time to learn something that doesn’t bring you joy immediately. However, I am enjoying it! It reminded me how much I like to embroider but that I need a good project or otherwise I feel aimless, so this kit is really nice for that.

Now for writing: I wrote two poems this month and had my first experience with one of my poems being edited. A friend from the improv/poetry community has been inviting me to a poetry group that I unfortunately haven’t been able to make yet, but she said I could still submit a poem to her for editing. The prompt this month was to take a line or theme from a Maggie Smith poem for inspiration. This was the first draft I submitted:

She was such a nice editor: very affirming and kind and I genuinely think her edits make my poem much stronger:

Sometimes with editing or critique, I think people can suggest things *they* would have done instead or *they* wanted to see, or *they* didn’t like - not quite reacting to what you created but what they wished you had created, ya know? I really appreciate how Heather kept what I created solid, but found ways to polish it and reinforce what was there. There were some edits I didn’t take, which helped me feel like having someone edit your poetry isn’t intrusive but very much suggestive. I think I’m going to pursue editing from peers more this year.

My second poem is just a fiddle fart of feelings:

(Btw, I wrote this before the awful helicopter/plane crash. It really was just a helicopter Steve heard. That one isn’t a metaphor.)

Other than that, I’ve just been reckoning with my clutter in the spirit of Imbolc. I’ve been making myself a little sick daydreaming of the garden I’ll attempt to get going again this year. One day I’ll get something out there! I have some clothes mending to do in the wings, and a bathroom renovation to actualize.

How are you? What art have you created this month? What art did you wish you created? How fucking sick of winter are you? Tell me all about it:

Much love,

Bríg