First: let’s just pretend the winter of 2022/2023 didn’t happen, yeah? Excellent. Good riddance.

Right now, I’m sitting in my apartment with the windows wide open. I can hear the ocean, and the myriad of birds that are as happy about spring as I am. It even smells good out there now. I have seen dry asphalt (the ultimate sign of spring up here), the seagulls are back, and even the local otter prefers to eat its lunch sprawled on the seaside rocks, bathing in the sun.

I’m teaching myself how to knit socks (second time’s the charm, right?), and have chosen a soft yarn that looks exactly like rainbow sprinkles. It’s a refreshing change from my previous knit, which was a navy winter trapper hat. The overlock machine I bought last August has finally been tried out, and today I’m going to cut out my second attempt at a black jersey pencil skirt. The first version was hastily altered in a thoughtless moment, and created a weird fabric bump right down the middle of my backside. I could really use a skirt like that, though, and thankfully Past Maria always overestimated how much fabric she would need, so I have just enough for a second try.

Speaking of clothes — I actually haven’t bought any new ones for all of 2023. Well, I did order some at the end of March (after a few frustrating “I genuinely have nothing to wear”-mornings), but none of them fit me well, and so all were returned. I’ve become even more picky with my clothes the past few years. Not so much in terms of style or expression (when you’re plus sized in Norway, that’s too high a bar), but regarding materials and fit. The physical feeling of a poorly fitted shoulder, or a fabric that doesn’t breathe, is just not something I’m able to ignore anymore. Sewing my own garments seems to be the most successful way to get what I want, which I find somehow both liberating and incredibly restrictive.

Maybe it’s just because I’m getting older, and thus starting to experience that giving-less-fucks thing I’ve heard so much about, but I really am feeling so rebellious towards the whole fashion/beauty industry these days. Not even in the way where I read a lot about the theory and get worked up about the wrongness of it all (though I have enjoyed Jessica DeFino’s substack “The Unpublishable”), but more as in that I just don’t even want to think about it, at all. I refuse to believe that so much of me needs constant fixing and grooming to be acceptable. I won’t do it anymore. Just leave me in peace, with my unplucked eyebrows and grown-out roots and unshaved legs. Any shame you feel looking at me, well, that all belongs to you.

Can you tell I’m a bit fed up with the world right now? Maybe not the world itself, but the people, especially in that impersonal form we call society.

I’d rather be with seagulls, every time.

Don’t get the wrong impression, though: I am delighting in this time right now. I love knowing that all my favourite parts of the year are coming: the budding, the growing, the neverending light. It feels like this summer will be one where I won’t stew in worries or annoyances, because I just won’t have any interest in, or patience for them.

I’ll swat them away; don’t bother me, I am too busy indulging my inner Ancient Greek. It’s more important to eat fruit in the sun. I’d rather read love poems with the windows open. The piano demands my attention.