We have always made our own things. We cook, we bake, we pick fruit for jam. We make homes and babies and portraits and novels. We iron, we hem our pants. We make very good Manhattans. We knit and string and wrap and wear our pretties out in public where even strangers stop to ask us where we got what we got, and we love that.

But this life is not for everyone.

Once, long ago, an evil sister-in-law pointed at us across the holiday table, laden with gratin and tenderloin, custard waiting to be served, leaned across all this we’d made and pointed her crooked finger at our chests.

She said, “You know your problem? You’re just too damn sure of yourself.”

A perfect problem, indeed. When she left, we let her take the necklace we’d made her as something to remember us by.

Sundry Inspirations: fleece, deep purple, fires, bourbon, quiet revenge, the fat cheek of a baby, red dirt, naps, the click of tap shoes, of needles, of rigging against a mast, marshmallows, soap bubbles, forced running, French perfume, pop singers played loud, grass green, ginger, baths, pricey cheese, flexibility, car trips as long as the Eastern Seaboard, pedicures, good dogs, better books, high heels, speckled eggs, sea salt chocolate, teaching, stovetop coffee, cold oysters, blooming tulips, the sight of a spring beet sliced open on an old wood board, shedding its bright red heart to the grain.